
Class__P'R_A5Jf 5 

Book_, i__vv4 

Copyright}!^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



CHARACTER PORTRAITS 
FROM DICKENS 



Charadier Portraits 
from Dickens 

SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY 

CHARLES WELSH 

Editor "Self Culture for Young People," "A Golden 

Treasury of Irish Songs and Lyrics," 

" Famous Battles'* 




BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 

1907 



Copyrighty igo"/ 

By Smally Maynard & Company 

Incorporated 



-or:' 



^M 



LIBRARY of CONSSESS: 

Two Copies Receivea 

DEC 26 1907 

Copyrieni tntrv 
OL/tSSA XXc. NO. 

C0P1 



Presswork by The Univtrsity Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. 



PREFACE 

That Charles Dickens touched our varied 
human nature at every point, and drew his 
characters from every walk of life, is a mat- 
ter of common knowledge to the lover and 
student of his works. But the ordinary 
reader, absorbed in the movement and in- 
terest of the story, scarcely realizes with 
what wonderful truthfulness as to exterior 
and physical features,— and with what 
powerful insight as to mental characteristics 
his people are presented. They are intensely 
human, every one; vital and palpitating; and 
they endure as living personalities in the mind 
of the reader when plot and story of the 
novel in which they figure are often but dimly 
remembered, or are wholly forgotten. 

Those -^fe«K who have lived nearer to the 
times and the places of which Dickens wrote 
have met many of their prototypes and can 
testify to the truthfulness of the portraiture; 
but one great and wonderful power of his lies 
in his being able to make strange characters, 
living in a strange atmosphere, in a fast-grow- 
ing far-off time, living and real to-day to those 
who have never known their like in flesh and 
blood. 



PREFACE 

So sharp, and so vivid, so distinct, and so 
clear, are his word paintings of the men and 
women who live and move and have their 
being in his pages that they suffer little, if 
at "fell, in mental-picture-forming power, by 
being taken out of their original setting and 
disassociated from their action. 

The one-hundred and fifty or more pen- 
portraits from Dickens, which make up this 
little book; selected from the 1,500 different 
characters portrayed by him — types of busi- 
ness men, professional men, tradesmen, and 
women; and of men and women whose occu- 
pations are now no more, are proof of the 
foregoing statement and are offered as giving 
a view of the genius and power of Dickens 
as a portrait painter with the pen, which 
has perhaps not hitherto been presented. 

The material selected is arranged alpha- 
betically according to the names of the char- 
acters, and prefaced to each portrait is a 
brief note indicating the place the individual 
occupies in the story from which the portrait 
is taken. At the end of each, references are 
given to all the chapters in the story in which 
the character appears. No liberty has been 
taken with the text excepting omissions here 
and there which are always indicated. 

The main idea has been to present those 
descriptions of individuals which are the 



PREFACE 

most vivid and concise in direct description 
rather than those which reveal their charac- 
ters in conversation or in their actions only. 
Many famous ones may therefore be missed 
in this collection, but those which are given 
will prove the truth of what has already been 
said and the compiler of this little volume 
will be happy if it leads the reader to a 
better appreciation and understanding of 
Dickens' inimitable power of pen-portraiture, 
and a closer acquaintance with his works. 

Charles Welsh. 
Winthrop, Mass. 



CHARACTER PORTRAITS FROM 
DICKENS 

Benjamin Allen, Mr. Bob Sawyer's friend, 
whose sister he purposes to marry. He was 
foiled, however, by the girl herself, Mr. Pick- 
wick and Mr. Winkle, who carried her off — 
the latter marrying her without the leave of 
any one. He was a medical student of some- 
what dissipated character {see Bob Sawyer). 

Mr. Benjamin Allen was a coarse, stout, 
thick-set young man, with black hair cut rather 
short, and a white face cut rather long. He 
was embellished with spectacles, and wore a 
white neckerchief. Below his single-breasted 
black surtout, which was buttoned up to his 
chin, appeared the usual number of pepper- 
and-salt coloured legs, terminating in a pair 
of imperfectly polished boots. Although his 
coat was short in the sleeves, it disclosed no 
vestige of a linen wristband; and although 
there was quite enough of his face to admit of 
the encroachment of a shirt collar, it was not 
graced by the smallest approach to that ap- 
pendage. He presented altogether rather a 
mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant 
odour of full-flavoured Cubas. 
Pickwick Papers, ch. xxx, xxxii, xxxviii, 

xlviii, I, li, liii, Uv, Ivi, Ivii. 
t 



MAJOR JOSEPH BAGSTOCK 

Major Joseph Bagstock, a retired army 
officer with an oriental servant. He is the p^o- 
hetween in bringing about the marriage of Mr. 
Dombey with Edith Granger, and he carried 
on a kind of platonic flirtation with Miss Tox. 

A wooden-featured, blue-eyed Major, with 
his eyes starting out of his head. . . . Al- 
though Major Bagstock had arrived at what is 
called in polite literature, the grand meridian 
of life, and was proceeding on his journey 
downhill with hardly any throat, and a very 
rigid pair of jaw-bones, and long-flapped ele- 
phantine ears, and his eyes and complexion in 
the state of artificial excitement already men- 
tioned, he was mightily proud of awakening 
an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled his vanity 
with the fiction that she was a splendid woman 
who had her eye on him. This he had several 
times hinted at the club: in connexion with 
little jocularities, of which old Joe Bagstock, 
old Joey Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, old Josh 
Bagstock, or so forth, was the perpetual 
theme : it being, as it were, the Major's strong- 
hold and donjon-keep of light humour, to be on 
the most familiar terms with his own name. 

" Joey B., Sir," the Major would say, with 
a flourish of his walking-stick, "is worth a 
dozen of you. If you had a few more of the 
Bagstock breed among you. Sir, you'd be none 
the worse for it. Old Joe, Sir, needn't look 



MRS. MARTHA BARDELL 

far for a wife, even now, if he was on the 
look-out; but he's hard-hearted. Sir, is Joe — 
he's tough. Sir, tough, and de-viHsh sly ! " 
After such a declaration, wheezing sounds 
would be heard; and the Major's blue would 
deepen into purple, while his eyes strained and 
started convulsively. 

Notwithstanding his very liberal laudation of 
himself, however, the Major was selfish. It 
may be doubted whether there ever was a more 
entirely selfish person at heart; or at stomach 
is perhaps a better expression, seeing that he 
was more decidedly endowed with that latter 
organ than with the former. He had no idea 
of being overlooked or slighted by anybody. 
Domhey and Son, ch. vii, x, xx, xxi, xxvi^ 

xxvii, xxxi, xxxvi, xl, li, lix, Ix. 

Mrs. Martha Barbell, Mr. Pickwick's land- 
lady, gaining the notion that he had offered to 
marry her, brings an action against him for 
breach of promise. She is successful, Mr. 
Pickwick refuses to pay the damages and is 
imprisoned for the debt. Mrs. Bar dell, being 
unable to pay the fees of the extortionate law- 
yers, Dodson and Fogg, later on follows him 
to prison, hearing of which Mr. Pickwick re- 
lents, pays the damages, and sets Mrs. Bardell 
free again. 



MR. BARKIS 



Mrs. Bardell — the relict and sole executrix 
of a deceased custom-house officer — was a 
comely woman of bustling manners and agree- 
able appearance, with a natural genius for 
cooking, improved by study and long practice 
into an exquisite talent. There were no chil- 
dren, no servants, no fowls. The only other 
inmates of the house were a large man, and a 
small boy; the first a lodger, the second a pro- 
duction of Mrs. Bardell's. The large man 
was always home precisely at ten o'clock at 
night, at which hour he regularly condensed 
himself into the limits of a dwarfish French 
bedstead in the back parlour ; and the infantine 
sports and gymnastic exercises of Master Bar- 
dell were exclusively confined to the neigh- 
bouring pavements and gutters. Cleanliness 
and quiet reigned throughout the house; and 
in it Mr. Pickwick's will was law. 
Pickwick Papers, ch. xii, xxvi, xxxiv, xlvi. 

Mr. Barkis, the carrier who takes David 
Copperiield to Yarmouth, when he first goes to 
school. On his way he entrusts David to tell 
Peggotty that " Barkis is willin'." She proves 
" willin' " also and after the queerest of court- 
ships they are married. 

Mr. Barkis appeared in an exceedingly va- 
cant and awkward condition, and with a bundle 
4 



MR. BARKIS 



of oranges tied up in a handkerchief. As he 
made no allusion of any kind to this property, 
he was supposed to have left it behind him by 
accident when he went away ; until Ham, run- 
ning after him to restore it, came back with 
the information that it was intended for Peg- 
gotty. After that occasion he appeared every 
evening at exactly the same hour, and always 
with a little bundle, to which he never alluded, 
and which he regularly put behind the door, 
and left there. These offerings of affection 
were of a most various and eccentric descrip- 
tion. Among them I remember a double set of 
pigs' trotters, a huge pincushion, half a bushel 
or so of apples, a pair of jet earrings, some 
Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary 
bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork. 

Mr. Barkis's wooing, as I remember it, was 
altogether of a peculiar kind. He very seldom 
said anything; but would sit by the fire in 
much the same attitude as he sat in, in his 
cart, and stare heavily at Peggotty, who was 
opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, in- 
spired by love, he made a dart at the bit of 
wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put it 
in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. 
After that his great delight was to produce it 
when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of 
his pocket, in a partially melted state, and 
pocket it again when it was done with. He 
5 



JOHN BARSAD 



seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not 
to feel at all called upon to talk. Even when 
he took Peggotty out for a walk on the flats, 
he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe; 
contenting himself with now and then asking 
her if she was pretty comfortable; and I re- 
member that sometimes, after he was gone, 
Peggotty would throw her apron over her 
face, and laugh for half-an-hour. Indeed, we 
were all more or less amused, except that mis- 
erable Mrs. Gummidge, whose courtship would 
appear to have been of an exactly parallel na- 
ture, she was so continually reminded by these 
transactions of the old one. 
David CopperHeld, ch: it, v, vii, viii, x, xxix, 
xxxi. 

John Barsad was really Solomon Pross, 
the brother of Miss Pross — Lucie Manette's 
maid. He robbed his sister of all she had, and 
then abandoned her to poverty. He became a 
spy and secret informer in the pay of the Eng- 
lish Government and afterwards a turnkey in 
the Conciergeric in Paris. 

Age, about forty years; height, about five 
feet nine; black hair; complexion dark; gen- 
erally, rather handsome visage ; eyes dark, face 
thin, long and sallow; nose aquiline, but not 
straight, having a peculiar inclination towards 
the left cheek; expression, therefore, sinister. 



JOHN BARSAD 



Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Repub- 
lican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, 
always spy and Secret informer, so much the 
more valuable here for being English that an 
Englishman is less open to suspicion of subor- 
dination in those characters than a French- 
man, represents himself to his employers under 
a false name. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ 
of the republican French government, was 
formerly in the employ of the aristocratic Eng- 
lish government, the enemy of France and 
freedom. Inference clear as day in this region 
of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay 
of the aristocratic English government. . . . 

Thrown out of his honourable employment 
in England, through too much unsuccessful 
hard swearing there — not because he was not 
wanted there; our English reasons for vaunt- 
ing our superiority to secrecy and spies are of 
very modern date — he knew that he had 
crossed the Channel, and accepted service in 
France : first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper 
among his own countrymen there : gradually, 
as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the 
natives. He knew that under the overthrown 
government he had been a spy upon Saint An- 
toine and Defarge's wine-shop; had received 
from the watchful police such heads of infor- 
mation concerning Doctor Manette's im- 
prisonment, release, and history as should 
7 



JOHN BARSAD 



serve him for an introduction to familiar con- 
versation with the Defarges; and tried them 
on Madame Defarge, and had broken down 
with them signally. He always remembered 
with fear and trembling, that that terrible 
woman had knitted when he talked with her, 
and had looked ominously at him as her fin- 
gers moved. He had since seen her, in the 
section of Saint Antoine; over and over again 
produce her knitted registers, and denounce 
people whose lives the guillotine then surely 
swallowed up. He knew, as every one em- 
ployed as he was did, that he was never safe; 
that flight was impossible; that he was tied 
fast under the shadow of the axe ; and that in 
spite of his uttermost tergiversation and 
treachery in furtherance of the reigning ter- 
ror, a word might bring it down upon him. 
Once denounced, and on such grave grounds 
as had just now been suggested to his mind, 
he foresaw that the dreadful woman of whose 
unrelenting character he had seen many 
proofs, would produce against him that fatal 
register, and would quash his last chance of 
life. 

A Tale of Two Cities, Bk. I, ch. Hi, vi, xiv, 
xvi; Bk. Ill, ch. viii, ix, ix, xi, xiii, xv. 



HARRIET BEADLE 



Harriet Beadle (called Tattycoram) 
maid to Minnie Meagles. She was taken 
from the Foundling Hospital by Mr. Meagles, 
who always advised her to "count five and 
twenty" when not in a good temper. She 
is intractable, and insensible to all the kind- 
ness shown her — runs away and lives with 
Miss Wade. She is instrumental in return- 
ing a certain box of papers which figures in 
the story and in the end returns humble and 
penitent to the home of her benefactors. 

A handsome girl with lustrous dark hair 
and eyes, and very neatly dressed, .... 
a sullen, passionate girl. Her rich black hair 
was all about her face, her face was flushed 
and hot, and as she sobbed and raged, she 
plucked at her lips with an unsparing hand. 

The girl raged and battled with all the 
force of her youth and fulness of life, until 
by little and little her passionate exclama- 
tions trailed off into broken murmurs as if 
she were in pain. By corresponding degrees 
she sank into a chair, then upon her knees, 
then upon the ground beside the bed, draw- 
ing the coverlet with her, half to hide her 
shamed head and wet hair in it, and half, 
as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have 
nothing to take to her repentant breast. 

" Go away from me, go away from me ! 
9 



MR. BEVAN 



When my temper comes upon me, I am mad. 
I know I might keep it off if I only tried 
hard enough, and sometimes I do try hard 
enough, and at other times I don't and won't. 
What have I said ! I knew when I said it, 
it was all lies. They think I am being taken 
care of somewhere, and have all I want. 
They are nothing but good to me. I love 
them dearly; no people could ever be kinder 
to a thankless creature than they always are 
to Yne. Do, do go away, for I am afraid of 
you. I am afraid of myself when I feel my 
temper coming, and I am as much afraid of 
you. Go away from me, and let me pray and 
cry myself better ! " 

Little Dorrit, Bk. I, ch. it, xvi, xxvii, xviii; 
Bk. ii, ch. ix, x, xx, xxxiii. 

Mr. Bevan, a warm-hearted, level-headed 
man from Massachusetts. Martin Chuzzlewit 
met him at his New York hoarding house, and 
he afterwards advanced him the money to 
enable him and Mark Tapley to return to Eng- 
land. 

Now, there had been at the dinner-table a 
middle-aged man with a dark eye and a sun- 
burnt face, who had attracted Martin's at- 
tention by having something very engaging 
and honest in the expression of his features; 
but of whom he could learn nothing from 

10 



MR. BEVAN 



either of his neighbours, who seemed to con- 
sider him quite beneath their notice. He had 
taken no part in the conversation round the 
stove, nor had he gone forth with the rest; 
and now, when he heard Martin sigh for the 
third or fourth time, he interposed with some 
•casual remark, as if he desired, without ob- 
truding himself upon a stranger's notice, to 
engage him in cheerful conversation if he 
could. His motive was so obvious, and yet so 
delicately expressed, that Martin felt really 
grateful to him, and showed him so, in the 
manner of his reply. . . . 

There was a cordial candour in his manner, 
and an engaging confidence that it would not 
be abused; a manly bearing on his own part, 
and a simple reliance on the manly faith of 
a stranger; which Martin had never seen 
before. He linked his arm readily in that of 
the American gentleman, and they walked out 
together. 

It was perhaps to men like this, his new 
companion, that a traveller of honoured name, 
who trod those shores now nearly forty years 
ago, and woke upon that soil, as many have 
done since, to blots and stains upon its high 
pretensions, which in the brightness of his 
distant dreams were lost to view; appealed 
in these words — 



II 



BITZER 

Oh but for such, Columbia's days were done; 
Rank without ripeness, quickened without 

sun, 
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core, 
Her fruits would fall before her spring were 

o'er! 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xv, xvii, xxi, xxxiii, 
xxxiv, xliii. 

BiTZER, a pupil of Mr. McChoakumchild in 
Gradgrind's Model School, who as a result 
of their methods grew up devoid of fancy, sen- 
timent and affection. 

His cold eyes would hardly have been 
eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, 
by bringing them into immediate contrast 
with something paler than themselves, ex- 
pressed their form. His short-cropped hair 
might have been a mere continuation of the 
sandy freckles on his forehead and face. 
His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in 
the natural tinge, that he looked as though, 
if it were cut, he would bleed 'white. 

" Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind. " Your 
definition of a horse." 

" Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, 
namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, 
and twelve incisors. Sheds coat in the spring; 
in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs 

12 



BITZER 

hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. 
Age known by marks in mouth." Thus (and 
much more) Bitzer. . . . 

He held the respectable office of general 
spy and informer in the establishment, for 
which volunteer service he received a present 
at Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. 
He had grown into an extremely clear- 
headed, cautious, prudent young man, who 
was safe to rise in the world. His mind was 
so exactly regulated, that he had no affections 
or passions. All his proceedings were the re- 
sult of the nicest and coldest calculation; and 
it was not without cause that Mrs. Sparsit 
habitually observed of him, that he was a 
young man of the steadiest principle she had 
ever known. Having satisfied himself, on his 
father's death, 'that his mother had a right of 
settlement in Coketown, this young economist 
had asserted that right for her with such a 
steadfast adherence to the principle of the 
case, that she had been shut up in the work- 
house ever since. It must be admitted that 
he allowed her half a pound of tea a year, 
which was weak in him: first, because all 
gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperise 
the recipient, and secondly, because his only 
reasonable transaction in that commodity 
would have been to buy it for as little as he 
could possibly give, and sell it for as much as 
13 



DOCTOR BLIMBER 



he could possibly get; it having been clearly 
ascertained by philosophers that in this is 
comprised the whole duty of man — not a 
part of man's duty, but the whole. 
" Hard Times," Book I, ch. ii; Book II, ch. i, 
iv, vi, vii, ix, xi; Book III, ch. vn, ix. 

Doctor Blimber, the proprietor of the ex- 
clusive private school at Brighton, where Paul 
Dombey was educated to death. 

The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit 
of black, with strings at his knees and stock- 
ings below them. He had a bald head, highly 
polished; a deep voice, and a chin so very 
double that it was a wonder how he ever man- 
aged to shave into the creases. He had like- 
wise a pair of little eyes that were always half 
shut up, and a mouth that was always ex- 
panded into a grin as if he had, at that mo- 
ment, posed a boy, and were waiting to con- 
vict him from his own lips. Insomuch that 
when the Doctor put his right hand into the 
breast of his coat, and with his other hand 
behind him, and a scarcely perceptible wag of 
his head, made the commonest observation to 
a nervous stranger, it was like a sentiment 
from the Sphinx, and settled his business. 

Whenever a young gentleman was taken in 
hand by Doctor Blimber, he might consider 
himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The 
14 



DOCTOR BLIMBER 



Doctor only undertook the charge of ten 
young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, 
a supply of learning for a hundred, on the 
lowest estimate; and it was at once the busi- 
ness and delight of his life to gorge the un- 
happy ten with it. 

In fact, Doctor Bliraber's establishment was 
a great hot-house, in which there was a forc- 
ing apparatus incessantly at work. All the 
boys blew before their time. Mental green- 
peas were produced at Christmas, and intel- 
lectual asparagus all the year round. Mathe- 
matical gooseberries (very sour ones too) 
were common at untimely seasons, and from 
mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blim- 
ber's cultivation. Every description of Greek 
and Latin vegetable was got off the dryest 
twigs of boys, under the frostiest circum- 
stances. Nature was of no consequence at 
all No matter what a young gentleman was 
intended to bear. Doctor Blimber made him 
bear to pattern, somehow or other. 

This was all very pleasant and ingenious 
but the system of forcing was attended with 
its usual disadvantages. There was no the 
right taste about the premature productions, 
and they didn't keep well. 
Dombey and Son, ch. xi, xii. xix. xxw, xU, 



Ix. 

IS 



JOSIAH BOUNDERBY 



JosiAH BouNDERBY^ Wealthy self-made man 

and a vulgar braggart. He married the 

daughter of Mr. Gradgrind. 

He was a rich man: banker, merchant, 
manufacturer, and what not. A big loud 
man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A 
man made out of a coarse material, which 
seemed to have been stretched to make so 
much of him. A man with a great puffed 
head and forehead, swelled veins in his tem- 
ples, and such a strained skin to his face that 
it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his 
eyebrows up. A man with a pervading ap- 
pearance on him of being inflated like a bal- 
loon, and ready to start. A man who could 
never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made 
man. A man who was always proclaiming, 
through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a 
voice of his, his old ignorance and his old 
poverty. A man who was the Bully of hu- 
mility. . . . 

His seven or eight and forty might have 
had the seven or eight added to it again, 
without surprising anybody. He had not 
much hair. One might have fancied he had 
talked it off; and that what was left, all 
standing up in disorder, was in that condition 
from being constantly blown about by his 
windy boastfulness. . . . 

" I hadn't a shoe to my foot. As to a 
i6 



JOSIAH BOUNDERBY 



stocking, I didn't know such a thing by name. 
I passed the day in a ditch, and the night in 
a pigsty. That's the way I spent my tenth 
birthday. Not that a ditch was new to me, 
for I was born in a ditch." . . . 

As soon as I was big enough to run away, 
of course I ran away. Then I became a 
young vagabond; and instead of one old 
woman knocking me about and starving me, 
everybody of all ages knocked me about and 
starved me. They were right; they had no 
business to do anything else. I was a nui- 
sance, an incumbrance, and a pest. I know 
that very well." . . . 

" I was to pull through it I suppose. 
Whether I was to do it or not, ma'am, I did 
it. I pulled through it, though nobody threw 
me out a rope. Vagabond, errand-boy, vaga- 
bond, labourer, porter, clerk, chief manager, 
small partner, Josiah Bounderby of Coke- 
town. These are the antecedents, and the 
culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown 
learnt his letters from the outsides of the 
shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and was first able to 
tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying 
tl.e steeple clock of St. Giles's Church, London, 
under the direction of a drunken cripple, who 
was a convicted thief, and an incorrigible 
vagrant. Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coke- 
town, of your district schools, and your model 
17 



LAWRENCE BOYTHORN 



schools, and your training schools, and your 
whole kettle-of-fish of schools; and Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown tells you plainly, all 
right, all correct — he hadn't such advan- 
tages — but let us have hard-headed, solid- 
fisted people — the education that made him 
won't do for everybody, he knows well — such 
and such his education was, however and you 
may force him to swallow boiling fat, but you 
shall never force him to suppress the facts of 
his life." 

Hard Times, Book I, ch. iii-ix, xi, xiv-xvi; 
Book II, ch. i-xii; Book III, ch. ii-ix. 

Lawrence Boythorn — a friend of Mr, 

Jarndyce. 

" I went to school with this fellow, Law- 
rence Boythorn," said Mr. Jarndyce, " more 
than five-and-forty years ago. He was then 
the most impetuous boy in the world, and he 
is now the most impetuous man. He was 
then the loudest boy in the world, and he is 
now the loudest man. He was then the 
heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and 
he is now the heartiest and sturdiest man. 
He is a tremendous fellow some ten years 
older than I, and a couple of inches taller, 
with his head thrown back like an old soldier, 
his stalwart chest squared, his hands like a 
i8 



LAWRENCE BOYTHORN 



clean blacksmith's, and his lungs ! — there's 
no simile for his lungs. Talking, laughing, 
or snoring, they make the beams of the house 
shake. . . . But it's the inside of the man, 
the warm heart of the man, the passion of 
the man, the fresh blood of the man, . . . 
that I speak of; his language is as sounding 
as his voice. He is always in extremes; per- 
petually in the superlative degree. In his 
condemnation he is all ferocity. You might 
suppose him to be an Ogre, from what he says ; 
and I believe he has the reputation of one 
with some people. There ! I tell you no more 
of him beforehand. You must not be sur- 
prised to see him take me under his protec- 
tion; for he has never forgotten that I was 
a low boy at school, and that our friendship 
began in his knocking two of my head ty- 
rant's teeth out (he says six) before break- 
fast.'* ... 

We all conceived a prepossession in his 
favour; for there was a sterling quality in 
this laugh, and in his vigorous healthy voice, 
and in the roundness and fulness with which 
he uttered every word he spoke, and in the 
very fury of his superlatives, which seemed 
to go off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. 
But we were hardly prepared to have it so 
confirmed by his appearance, when Mr. Jarn- 
dyce presented him. He was not only a very 
19 



SALLY BRASS 



handsome old gentleman — upright and stal- 
wart as he had been described to us, with a 
massive grey head, a fine composure of face 
when silent, a figure that might have become 
corpulent but for his being so continually in 
earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin 
that might have subsided into a double chin 
but for the vehement emphasis in which it 
was constantly required to assist; but he was 
such a true gentleman in his manner, so chiv- 
alrously polite, his face was lighted by a 
smile of so much sweetness and tenderness, 
and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to 
hide, but showed himself exactly as he was 
— incapable (as Richard said) of anything 
on a limited scale, and firing away with those 
blank great guns, because he carried no small 
arms whatever — that really I could not help 
looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat 
at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed 
with Ada and me, or was led by Mr. Jarndyce 
into some great volley of superlatives, or 
threw up his head like a bloodhound, and 
gave out that tremendous Ha, ha, ha ! 
Bleak House, ch. ix, xii, xiii, xv, xviii, xxiii, 
xUii, Ixvi. 

Sally Brass, sister of Sampson Brass. 
Clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary, con- 
fidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of 
20 



SALLY BRASS 



cost increaser, Miss Brass — a kind of ama- 
zon at common law. . . . [she] was a 
lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of gaunt 
and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which 
if it repressed the softer emotions of love, 
and kept admirers at a distance, certainly 
inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts 
of those male strangers who had the hap- 
piness to approach her. In face she bore a 
striking resemblance to her brother, Samp- 
son — so exact indeed, was the likeness be- 
tween them, that had it consorted with Miss 
Brass's maiden modesty and gentle woman- 
hood to have assumed her brother's clothes 
in a frolic and sat down beside him, it would 
have been difficult for the oldest friend of the 
family to determine which was Sampson and 
which was Sally, especially as the lady 
caM-ied upon her upper lip certain reddish 
demonstrations, which, if the imagination had 
been assisted by her attire, might have been 
mistaken for a beard. These were, how- 
ever, in all probability, nothing more than 
eye-lashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of 
Miss Brass were quite free from any such 
natural impertinencies. In complexion Miss 
Brass was sallow — rather a dirty sallow, so 
to speak — but this hue was agreeably re- 
lieved by the healthy glow which mantled in 
the extreme tip of her laughing nose. Her 

. 21 



SALLY BRASS 



voice was exceedingly impressive — deep and 
rich in quality, and once heard, not easily 
forgotten. Her usual dress was a green 
gown, in colour not unlike the curtain of the 
office window, made tight to the figure, and 
terminating at the throat, where it was fas- 
tened behind by a peculiarly large and massive 
button. 

Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity and plain- 
ness are tiie soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore 
no collar or kerchief except upon her head, 
which was invariably ornamented with a 
brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled 
vampire, and which, twisted into any form 
that happened to suggest itself, formed an 
easy and graceful head-dress. 

Such was Miss Brass in person. In mind, 
she was of a strong and vigorous turn, having 
from her earliest youth devoted herself with 
uncommon ardour to the study of the law; 
not wasting her speculations upon its eagle 
flights, which are rare, but tracing it atten- 
tively through all the slippery and eel-like 
crawlings in which it commonly pursues its 
way. Nor had she, like many persons of 
great intellect, confined herself to theory, 
or stopped short where practical usefulness 
begins; inasmuch as she could ingross, fair- 
copy, fill up printed forms with perfect ac- 
curacy, and in short transact any ordinary 

22 



SAMPSON BRASS 



duty of the office down to pouncing a skin 
of parchment or mending a pen. It is diffi- 
cult to understand" how, possessed of these 
combined attractions, she should remain Miss 
Brass; but whether she had steeled her heart 
against mankind, or whether those who might 
have wooed and won her, were deterred by 
fears that, being learned in the law, she might 
have too near her fingers' ends those particu- 
lar statutes which regulate what are famil- 
iarly termed actions for breach, certain it is 
that she was still in a state of celibacy, and 
still in daily occupation of her old stool op- 
posite to that of her brother Sampson. . . . 

She was in a state of lawful innocence, so 
to speak. The law had been her nurse, and, 
as bandy-legs or some physical deformities in 
children are held to be the consequence of bad 
nursing, so, if in a mind so beautiful any 
moral twist or bandiness could be found. Miss 
Sally Brass's nurse was alone to blame. 
The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xxxiii-xxxviii, 

xlix, li, Ivi-lx, Ixii-lxiv, Ixvi, Ixvii, Ixxxiii. 

Sampson Brass, an attorney of no very 
good repute of Bevis Marks, London — 
Quilp's legal adviser. ' At the end of his ne- 
farious career he fell into the clutches of the 
lafw and was sent into penal servitude. 

He was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like 
a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, 
23 



SAMPSON BRASS 



and hair of a deep red. He wore a long 
black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, 
short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton 
stockings of a bluish grey. He had a cring- 
ing manner but a very harsh voice, and his 
blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, 
that to have had his company under the least 
repulsive circumstances, one would wished 
him to be out of temper that he might only 
scowl. 

It was a maxim with Mr. Brass that the 
habit of paying compliments kept a man's 
tongue oiled without any expense; and, as 
that useful member ought never to grow 
rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the 
case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it 
should be always glib and easy, he lost few op- 
portunities of improving himself by the utter- 
ance of handsome speeches and eulogistic ex- 
pressions. And this had passed into such a 
habit with him, that, if he could not be cor- 
rectly said to have his tongue at his fingers' 
ends, he might certainly be said to have it 
anywhere but in his face: which being, as 
we have already seen, of a harsh and repul- 
sive character, was not oiled so easily, but 
frowned above all the smooth speeches — one 
of nature's beacons, warning off those who 
navigated the shoals and breakers of the 
World, or of that dangerous strait the Law, 
24 



JEFFERSON BRICK 



and admonishing them to seek less treacher- 
ous harbours and try their fortune elsewhere. 
The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xxxiii-xxxviii, 
li, Ivi, Iviii-lx, Ixiii-lxvii, Ixxiii. 

Mr. Jefferson Brick, the war correspond- 
ent of " The Rowdy Journal " introduced to 
Martin Chuzzlewit by the Editor, Colonel 
Driver, — a gentleman who " had reason to 
know that the aristocratic circles of [^Eng- 
land'] quail before the name of Jefferson 
Brick." 

A small young gentleman of very juvenile 
appearance, and unwholesomely pale in the 
face; partly, perhaps, from intense thought, 
but partly, there is no doubt, from the exces- 
sive use of tobacco, which he was at that 
moment chewing vigorously. He wore his 
shirt-collar turned down over a black ribbon, 
and his lank hair — a fragile crop — was not 
only smoothed and parted back from his brow, 
that none of the Poetry of his aspect might 
be lost, but had here and there been grubbed 
up by the roots ; which accounted for his lofti- 
est developments being somewhat pimply. 
He had that order of nose on which the envy 
of mankind has bestowed the appellation 
" snub," and it was very much turned up at 
the end, as with a lofty scorn. Upon the 
upper lip of- this young gentleman, were tok- 
25 



MR. INSPECTOR BUCKET 

ens of a sandy down — so very, very smooth 
and scant, that, though encouraged to the ut- 
most, it looked more like a recent trace of 
gingerbread, than the fair promise of a 
moustache; and this conjecture, his appar- 
ently tender age went far to strengthen. He 
was intent upon his work; and every time he 
snapped the great pair of scissors, he made a 
corresponding motion with his jaws, which 
gave him a very terrible appearance. 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xvi. 

Mr. Inspector Bucket, the detective oMcer 
who brings to light the murderer of Mr. 
Tulkinghorn, when Lady Dedlock was under 
suspicion. 

He is a sharp-eyed man — a quick keen 
man — and he takes in everybody's look at 
him, all at once, individually and collectively, 
in a manner that stamps him a remarkable 
man. . . . When Mr. Bucket has a mat- 
ter of pressing interest under his considera- 
tion, the fat forefinger seems to rise to the 
dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to 
his ears, and it whispers information; he puts 
it to his lips, and it enjoins him to secrecy; 
he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his 
scent; he shakes it before a guilty man, and 
it charms him to his destruction. The Au- 
26 



m 



MR. INSPECTOR BUCKET 

gurs of the Detective Temple invariably pre- 
dict, that when Mr. Bucket and that finger 
are much in conference, a terrible avenger 
will be heard of before long. 

Otherwise mildly studious in his observa- 
tion of human nature, on the whole a be- 
nignant philosopher not disposed to be severe 
upon the follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket per- 
vades a vast number of houses, and strolls 
about an infinity of streets: to outward ap- 
pearance rather languishing for want of an 
object. He is in the friendliest condition to- 
ward his species, and will drink with most of 
them. He is free with his money, afifable in 
his manners, innocent in his conversation — 
but, through the placid stream of his life, 
there glides an under-current of forefinger. 

Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. 
Like man in the abstract, he is here to-day 
and gone to-morrow — but, very unlike man 
indeed, he is here again the next day. . . . 
He is no great scribe; rather handling his 
pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with 
him always convenient to his grasp; and dis- 
courages correspondence with himself in oth- 
ers, as being too artless and direct a way 
of doing delicate business. Further, he often 
sees damaging letters produced ii) evidence, 
and has occasion to reflect that it was a green 
thing to write them. For these reasons he 
27 



MR. BUMBLE 



has very little to do with letters, either as 
sender or receiver. 

Bleak- House, ch. xxii, xxiv, xxv, xlix, liii, 
liv, hi, Ivii, lix, Ixi, IxU. 

Mr. Bumble, a parish beadle puffed up with 
the importance of his position — an insolent, 
tyrannical, pompous, greedy, selfish scoundrel. 
He marries the matron of the workhouse 
where Oliver Twist was farmed — and in the 
end loses his place on account of selling some 
articles left by the mother of Oliver for the 
purpose of the boy's identiiication. 

Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from 
the work-house gate; and walked, with port- 
ly carriage and commanding steps, up the 
High Street. He was in the full bloom and 
pride of beadlehood ; his cocked hat and coat 
were dazzling in the morning sun; and he 
clutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity 
of health and power. Mr. Bumble always 
carried his head high ; but this morning it was 
higher than usual. There was an abstraction 
in his eye, an elevation in his air, which 
might have warned an observant stranger 
that thoughts were passing in the beadle's 
mind, too great for utterance. 

Mr. Bumble stopped not to converse with 
the small shop-keepers and others who spoke 
to him, deferentially, as he passed along. He 
28 



MR. BUMBLE 



merely returned their salutations with a wave 
of his hand; and relaxed not in his dignified 
pace, until he reached the farm where Mrs. 
Mann tended the infant paupers with pa- 
rochial care. 

Now, Mr. Bumble was a fat man, and a 
choleric. He had a decided propensity for 
bullying; derived no inconsiderable pleasure 
from the exercise of petty cruelty; and, con- 
sequently, was (it is needless to say) a cow- 
ard. This is by no means a disparagement to 
his character; for many official personages, 
who are held in high respect and admiration, 
are the victims of similar infirmities. The 
remark is made, indeed, rather in his favour 
than otherwise, and with a view of impressing 
the reader with a just sense of his qualifica- 
tions for office. . . . 

Mr. Bumble sat in the workhouse parlour, 
with his eyes moodily fixed on the cheerless 
grate, whence, as it was summer time, no 
brighter gleam proceeded, than the reflection 
of certain sickly rays of the sun, which were 
sent back from its cold and shining surface. 
A paper fly-cage dangled from the ceiling, to 
which he occasionally raised his eyes in 
gloomy thought; and, as the heedless insects 
hovered round the gaudy network, Mr. Bum- 
ble would heave a deep sigh, while a more 
gloomy shadow overspread his countenance. 
29 



MR. BUMBLE 



Mr. Bumble was meditating; it might be that 
the insects brought to mind, some painful 
passage in his own past life. 

Nor was Mr. Bumble's gloom the onlyrthing 
calculated to awaken a pleasing melancholy 
in the bosom of a spectator.>^ There were not 
wanting other appearances, and those closely 
connected with his own person, which an- 
nounced that a great change had taken place 
in the position of his affairs. The laced coat, 
and the cocked-hat; where were they? He 
still wore knee-breeches, and dark cotton 
stockings on his nether limbs ; but they were 
not the breeches. The coat was wide-skirted; 
and in that respect like the coat, but, oh, how 
different ! The mighty cocked-hat was re- 
placed by a modest round one. Mr. Bumble 
was no longer a beadle. 

There are some promotions in life, which, 
independent of the more substantial rewards 
they offer, acquire peculiar value and dignity 
from the coats and waistcoats connected with 
them. A field-marshal has his uniform ; a 
bishop his silk apron; a counsellor his silk 
gown; a beadle his cocked-hat. Strip the 
bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his 
hat and lace; what are they? Men. Mere 
men. Dignity, and even holiness too, some- 
times, are more questions of coat and waist- 
coat than some people imagine. 
30 



CAPTAIN JACK BUNSBY 



Mr. Bumble had married Mrs. Corney, and 
was master of the workhouse. Another 
beadle had come into power; and on him the 
cocked-hat, gold-laced coat, and staff, had all 
three descended. 
Oliver Twist, ch. i, iii-v, zni, xvii, xxiii, 

xxxvii, xxxviii, U. 

Captain Jack Bunsby, an oracular friend 
of Captain Cuttle, who always looks to him 
for advice. He is master of a vessel called 
the "Cautious Clara" and is finally captured 
and married by force to Mrs. MacStinger, 
his landlady and formerly Captain Cuttle's — 
who succeeded in escaping her clutches. 

Immediately there appeared, coming slowly 
up above the bulk-head of the cabin, another 
bulk-head — human, and very large — with 
one stationary eye in the mahogany face, and 
one revolving one, on the principle of some 
lighthouses. This head was "decorated with 
shaggy hair, like oakum, which had no gov- 
erning inclination towards the north, east, 
west, or south, but inclined to all four quar- 
ters of the compass, and to every point upon 
it. The head was followed by a perfect 
desert of chin, and by a shirt-collar and neck- 
erchief, and by a dreadnought pilot-coat, and 
b;- a pair of dreadnought pilot-trousers, 
whereof the waistband was so very broad and 
31 



SYDNEY CARTON 



high, that it became a succedaneum for a 
waistcoat : being ornamented near the wear- 
er's breast-bone with some massive wooden 
buttons, like backgammon men. As the lower 
portions of these pantaloons became revealed, 
Bunsby stood confessed ; his hands in their 
pockets, which were of vast size ; and his gaze 
directed, not to Captain Cuttle or the ladies, 
but the mast-head. 
Domhey and Son, ch. xxviii, xxxix, Ix. 

Sydney Carton, a lawyer's "devil" and 
drudge for Mr. Stryver, a man of good senti- 
ment and great ability, hut dissipated and 
reckless. He is in love with Lucie Manette, 
but knowing his unworthiness, he declares his 
love and leaves her forever. Her husband is 
condemned to death during the Terror. Car- 
ton rescues him by drugging him and chang- 
ing clothes with him — the resemblance be- 
tween them is *str iking — and he goes to the 
scaffold in his place. " They said of him 
" about the city that night that it was the 
" peacefullest man's face they ever beheld 
" there. Many added that he looked sublime 
''and prophetic." 

Sydney Carton, idlest and most unprornis- 

ing of men, was Stryver's great ally. What 

the two drank together, between Hilary Term 

and Michaelmas, might have floated a king's 

32 



SYDNEY CARTON 



ship. Stryver never had a case in hand, any- 
where, but Carton was there, with his hands 
in his pockets, staring at the ceiling of the 
court; they went the same Circuit, and even 
there they prolonged their usual orgies late 
into the night, and Carton was rumoured to 
be seen at broad day, going home stealthily 
and unsteadily to his lodgings, like a dissi- 
pated cat. At last, it began to get about, 
among such as were interested in the matter, 
that although Sydney Carton would never be 
a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and 
that he rendered suit and service to Stryver 
in that humble capacity. . . . Suddenly 
enough the jackal loosened his dress, went 
to an adjoining room, and came back with a 
large jug of cold water, a basin and a towel 
or two. Steeping the towels in the water, 
and partially wringing them out, he folded 
them on his head in a manner hideous to be- 
hold, [and] sat down at the table. ... 

The lion then composed himself on his back 
on a sofa on one side of the drinking-table, 
while the jackal sat at his own paper-be- 
strewn table proper, on the other side of it, 
with the bottles and glasses ready to his 
hand. Both resorted to the drinking-table 
without stint, but each in a different way; 
the lion for the most part reclining with his 
hands in his waistband, looking at the fire, or 
33 



SYDNEY CARTON 



occasionally flirting with some lighter docu- 
ment; the jackal, with knitted brows and in- 
tent face, so deep in his task, that his eyes 
did not even follow the hand he stretched out 
for his glass — which often groped about, for 
a minute or more, before it found the glass 
for his lips. Two or three times, the matter 
in hand became so knotty, that the jackal 
found it imperative on him to get up, and 
steep his towels anew. From these pilgrim- 
ages to the jug and basin, he returned with 
such eccentricities af damp head-gear as no 
words can describe; which were made the 
more ludicrous by his anxious gravity. 

At length the jackal had got together a 
compact repast for the lion and proceeded to 
offer it to him. The lion took it with care 
and caution, made his selections from it, and 
his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted 
both. When the repast was fully discussed, 
the lion put his hands in his waistband again, 
and lay down to meditate. The jackal then 
invigorated himself with a bumper for his 
throttle, and a fresh application to his head, 
and applied himself to the collection of a sec- 
ond meal ; this was administered to the lion 
in the same manner, and was not disposed of 
until the clocks struck three in the morning. 

" And now we have done, Sydney, fill a 
bumper of punch," said Mr. Stryver. 
34 



CHRISTOPHER CASBY 



The jackal removed the towels from his 
head, which had been steaming again, shook 
himself, yawned, shivered, and complied. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, ch. ii-vi, xi, 

xiii, XX, xxi; Book Hi, ch. viii, ix, xi, xH, 

xiii, xvi. 

Christopher Casby, landlord of Bleeding 
Heart Yard, who grinds his tenants by 
proxy. His collector, Mr. Pancks, exposes 
the avaricious old sinner before all his tenants 
and retires from his service. 

A man advanced in life, whose smooth 
grey eyebrows seemed to move to the ticking 
as the fire-light flickered on them, sat in an 
arm-chair, with his list shoes on the rug, and 
his thumbs slowly revolving over one another. 
This was old Christopher Casby — recognis- 
able at a glance — as unchanged in twenty 
years and upward, as his own solid furniture 
— as little touched by the influence of the 
varying seasons, as the old rose-leaves and 
old lavender in his porcelain jars. 

Perhaps there never was a man, in this 
troublesome world, so troublesome for the im- 
agination to picture as a boy. And yet he 
had changed very little in his progress 
through life. Confronting him, in the room 
in which he sat, was a boy's portrait, which 
anybody seeing him would have identified as 
35 



CHRISTOPHER CASBY 



Master Christopher Casby, aged ten: though 
disguised with a haymaking rake, for which 
he had had, at any time, as much taste or use 
as for a diving-bell; and sitting (on one of 
his own legs) upon a bank of violets, moved 
to precocious contemplation by the spire of 
a village church. There was the same 
smooth face and forehead, the same calm blue 
eye, the same placid air. The shining bald 
head, which looked so very large because it 
shone so much; and the long grey hair at its 
sides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, 
which looked so very benevolent because it 
was never cut; were not, of course, to be seen 
in the boy as in the old man. Nevertheless, 
in the Seraphic creature with the hay-making 
rake, were clearly to be discerned the rudi- 
ments of the Patriarch with the list shoes. . 
He had a long wide-skirted bottle-green 
coat on, and a bottle-green pair of trousers, 
and a bottle-green waistcoat. The Patriarchs 
were not dressed in bottle-green broadcloth, 
and yet his clothes looked Patriarchal. . . . 
Patriarch was the name which many people 
delighted to give him. Various old ladies in 
the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last 
of the Patriarchs. So grey, so slow, so 
quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy in the 
head, Patriarch was the word for him. He 
had been accosted in the streets, and respect- 
36 



CHRISTOPHER CASBY 



fully solicited to become a Patriarch for 
painters and for sculptors; with so much im- 
portunity, in sooth, that it would appear to be 
beyond the Fine Arts to remember the points 
of a Patriarch, or to invent one. Philanthro- 
pists of both sexes had asked who he was, and 
on being informed, " Old Christopher Casby, 
formerly Town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite 
Barnacle," had cried in a rapture of disap- 
pointment, " Oh ! why, with that head, is he 
not a benefactor to his species ! Oh ! why, 
with that head, is he not a father to the or- 
phan and a friend to the friendless ! " With 
that head, however, he remained old Christo- 
pher Casby, proclaimed by common report 
rich in house property. 

His smooth face had a bloom upon it, like 
ripe wall-fruit. What with his blooming 
face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he 
seemed to be delivering sentiments of rare 
wisdom and virtue. In like manner, his 
physiognomical expression seemed to teem 
with benignity. Nobody could have said 
where the wisdom was, or where the virtue 
was, or where the benignity was; but they all 
seemed to be somewhere about him. 
Little Dorritt, Book I, ch. xii, xiii, xxiii, 

xxxv; Book II, ch. ix, xxiii, xxxii. 



37 



THE REVEREND MR. CHADBAND 

The Reverend Mr. Chadband, a type of 
canting parson of the predatory order. 

Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man, with 
a fat smile, and a general appearance of hav- 
ing a good deal of train oil in his system. 
Mrs. Chadband is a stern, severe-looking, si- 
lent woman. Mr. Chadband moves softly 
and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has 
been taught to walk upright. He is very 
much embarrassed about the arms, as if they 
were inconvenient to him, and he wanted to 
grovel; is very much in a perspiration about 
the head; and never speaks without first put- 
ting up his great hand, as delivering a token 
to his hearers that he is going to edify them. 
. . . From Mr. Chadband's being much 
given to describe himself, both verbally and in 
writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mis- 
taken by strangers for a gentleman connected 
with navigation; but, he is, as he expresses it, 
" in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached 
to no particular denomination ; and is con- 
sidered by his persecutors to have nothing so 
very remarkable to say on the greatest of sub- 
jects as to render his volunteering, on his own 
account, at all incumbent on his conscience; 
but, he has his followers. . . . 

" My friends," says he, " what is this which 
we now behold as being spread before us? 
Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, 
38 



THE REVEREND MR. CHADBAND 

my friends? We do. And why do we need 
refreshment, my friends? Because we are 
but mortal, because we are but sinful, because 
we are but of the earth, because we are not 
of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We 
cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends? 
. . . I say, my friends, . . . why can 
we not fly? Is it because we are calculated 
to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends, 
without strength? We could not. What 
should we do without strength, my friends? 
Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees 
would double up, our ankles would turn over, 
and we should come to the ground. Then 
from whence, my friends, in a human point 
of view, do we derive the strength that is 
necessary to our limbs? Is it from bread in 
various forms, from butter which is churned 
from the milk which is yielded unto us by 
the cow^ from the eggs which are laid by the 
fowl, from ham, from tongue, from sausage, 
and from such like? It is. Then let us par- 
take of the good things which are set before 
us!" 

The persecutors denied that there was any 
particular gift in Mr. Chadband's piling ver- 
bose flights of stairs, one upon another, after 
this fashion. But this can only be received 
as a proof of their determination to perse- 
cute, since it must be within everybody's ex- 
39 



EDWARD CHESTER 



perience, that the Chadband style of oratory 
is widely received and much admired. 

Bleak House, ch. xix, xxiv, liy. 

Edward Chester, tJw son of Sir John 
Chester who married Miss Emma Haredale 
in spite of the opposition of his heartless 
father. 

A young man of about eight-and-twenty, 
rather above the midde height, and though of 
a somewhat slight figure, gracefully and 
strongly made. He wore his own dark hair, 
and was accoutred in a riding-dress, which, 
together with his large boots (resembling in 
shape and fashion those worn by our Life 
Guardsmen at the present day), showed in- 
disputable traces of the bad condition of the 
roads. But travel-stained though he was, he 
was well and even richly attired, and without 
being over-dressed looked a gallant gentle- 
man. 

Lying upon the table beside him, as he had 
carelessly thrown them down, were a heavy 
riding-whip and a slouched hat, the latter 
worn no doubt as being best suited to the in- 
clemency of the weather. There, too, were a 
pair of pistols in a holster-case, and a short 
riding-cloak. Little of his face was visible, 
except the long dark lashes which concealed 
his downcast eyes, but an air of careless ease 
40 



MR. CHESTER 



and natural gracefulness of demeanor per- 
vaded the figure, and seemed to comprehend 
even these slight accessories, which were all 
handsome, and in good keeping. 
Barnaby Rudge, ch. i, ii, v, vi, xiv, xix, 
xxix, xxxii, Ixvi, Ixxi, Ixxii, Ixxix, Ixxxii. 

Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Chester, a 
man without heart and without principle, but 
of the most elegantly punctilious and polite 
manners. He unsuccessfully attempted to 
break off the marriage of his son with Emma 
Haredale, because she is poor, and because he 
has a match in view for him which will con- 
fer more wealth and importance on himself. 
He was killed in a duel by Mr. Geoffrey 
Haredale. 

He was a staid, grave, placid gentleman, 
something past the prime of life, yet upright 
in his carriage, for all that, and slim as a 
greyhound. He was well-mounted upon a 
sturdy chestnut cob^ and had the graceful seat 
of an experienced horseman; while his rid- 
ing-gear, though free from such fopperies as 
were then in vogue, was handsome and well 
chosen. He wore a riding-coat of a some- 
what brighter green than might have been ex- 
pected to suit the taste of a gentleman of his 
years, with a short black velvet cape, lace 
pocket-holes and cuffs, all of a jaunty fash- 
41 



MR. CHESTER 



ion; his linen, too, was of the finest kind, 
worked in a rich pattern at the wrists and 
throat, and scrupuously white. Although he 
seemed, judging from the mud he had picked 
up on the way, to have come from London, 
his horse was as smooth and cool as his own 
iron-grey periwig and pigtail. Neither man 
nor beast had turned a single hair; and, sav- 
ing for his soiled skirts and spatter-dashes, 
this gentleman, with his blooming face, white 
teeth, exactly-ordered dress, and perfect calm- 
ness, might have come from making an elabo- 
rate and leisurely toilet, to sit for an eques- 
trian portrait. . . . 

Mr. Chester reclined upon a sofa in his 
dressing-room in the Temple, entertaining 
himself with a book. 

He was dressing, as it seemed, by easy 
stages, and having performed half the jour- 
ney was taking a long rest. Completely at- 
tired as to his legs and feet in the trimmest 
fashion of the day, he had yet the remainder 
of his toilet to perform. The coat was 
stretched, like a refined scare-crow, on its 
separate horse; the waistcoat was displayed 
to the best advantage; the various ornamen- 
tal articles of dress were severally set out in 
most alluring order; and yet he lay dangling 
his legs between the sofa and the ground, as 
intent upon his book as if there were nothing 
but bed before him. 

42 



MR. CHESTER 



" Upon my honour," he said, at length rais- 
ing his eyes to the ceiHng with the air of a 
man who was reflecting seriously on what he 
had read ; " upon my honour, the most mas- 
terly composition, the most delicate thoughts, 
the finest code of morality, and the most gen- 
tlemanly sentiments in the universe ! . . . 

" My Lord Chesterfield," he said, pressing 
his hand tenderly upon the book as he laid it 
down, "if I could but have profited by your 
genius soon enough to have formed my son on 
the model you have left to all wise fathers, 
both he and I would have been rich men. 
Shakspeare was undoubtedly very fine in his 
way; Milton good, though prosy; Lord Ba- 
con deep, and decidedly knowing; but the 
writer who should be his country's pride, is 
my Lord Chesterfield. . . . 

" I thought I was tolerably accomplished as 
a man of the world, I flattered myself that I 
was pretty well versed in all those little arts 
and graces which distinguish men of the 
world from boors and peasants, and separate 
their character from those intensely vulgar 
sentiments which are called the national char- 
acter. Apart from any natural prepossession 
in my own favour, I believed I was. Still, in 
every page of this enlightened writer, I find 
some captivating hypocrisy which has never 
occurred to me before, or some superlative 
43 



JOHN CHIVERY 



piece of selfishness to which I was utterly a 
stranger. I should quite blush for myself be- 
fore this stupendous creature, if, remember- 
ing his precepts, one might blush at anything. 
An amazing man ! a nobleman indeed ! any 
King or Queen may make a Lord, but only 
the Devil himself — and the Graces — can 
make a Chesterfield." 

Men who are thoroughly false and hollow, 
seldom try to hide those vices from them- 
selves; and yet in the very act of avowing 
them, they lay claim to the virtues they feign 
most to despise. " For," say they, " this is 
honesty, this is truth. All mankind are like 
us, but they have not the candour to avow 
it." The more they affect to deny the exist- 
ence of any sincerity in the world, the more 
they would be thought to possess it in its bold- 
est shape; and this is an unconscious compli- 
ment to Truth on the part of these philoso- 
phers, which will turn the laugh against them 
to the Day of Judgment. 
Barnaby Rudge, ch. x-xii, xiv, xv, xxii, xxiv, 

xxvi-xxx, xxxii, xl, xliii, liii, Ixxv, Ixxxi. 

John Chivery, son of the Turnkey of the 
Marshalsea prison, a lover of little Dorritt, 
who while admiring his faithful character 
cannot return his affection. 

Young John was small of stature, with 
44 



JOHN CHIVERY 



weak legs, and very weak light hair. One of 
his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to peep 
through the keyhole) was also weak, and 
looked larger than the other, as if it couldn't 
collect itself. Young John was gentle like- 
wise. But he was great of soul. Poetical, 
expansive, faithful. 

Though too humble before the ruler of his 
heart to be sanguine. Young John had con- 
sidered the object of his attachment in all its 
lights and shades. Following it out to bliss- 
ful results, he had descried, without self-com- 
mendation, a fitness in it. Say things pros- 
pered, and they were united. She, the child 
of the Marshalsea; he, the lock-keeper. 
There was a fitness in that. Say he became 
a resident turnkey. She would officially suc- 
ceed to the chamber she had rented so long. 
There was a beautiful propriety in that. It 
looked over the wall, if you stood on tip-toe; 
and, with a trellis-work of scarlet beans and 
a canary or so, would become a very Arbour. 
There was a charming idea in that. Then, 
being all in all to one another, there was even 
an appropriate grace in the lock. With the 
world shut out (except that part of It which 
would be shut in) ; with its troubles and dis- 
turbances only known to them by hearsay, as 
they would be described by the pilgrims tarry- 
ing with them on their way to the Insolvent 
45 



JOHN CHIVERY 



Shrine; with the Arbour above, and the 
Lodge below; they would glide down the 
stream of time, in pastoral domestic happi- 
ness. Young John drew tears from his eyes 
by finishing the picture with a tombstone in 
the adjoining church-yard, close against the 
prison wall, bearing the following touching 
inscription : " Sacred to the Memory of 
John Chivery, Sixty years Turnkey, and 
fifty years Head Turkey, Of the neighbour- 
ing Marshalsea, Who departed this life, uni- 
versally respected, on the thirty-first of De- 
cember, One thousand eight hundred and 
eighty-six. Aged eighty-three years. Also of 
his truly beloved and truly loving wife. Amy, 
whose maiden name was Dorrit, Who sur- 
vived his loss not quite forty-eight hours, And 
who breathed her last in the Marshalsea 
aforesaid. There she was born, There she 
lived. There she died." . . . 

It was an affecting illustration of the fal- 
lacy of human projects, to behold her lover 
\/ith the great hat pulled over his eyes, the 
velvet collar turned up as if it rained, 
the plum-coloured coat buttoned to conceal 
the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the 
little direction-post pointing inexorably home, 
creeping along by the worst back streets, and 
composing, as he went, the following new in- 
scription for a tombstone in St. George's 
Churchyard : 

46 



MAJOR HANNIBAL CHOLLOP 

** Here lie the mortal remains of John 
Chivery, Never anything worth mentioning, 
Who died about the end of the year one thou- 
sand eight hundred and twenty-six, Of a 
broken heart, Requesting with his last breath 
that the word Amy might be inscribed over 
his ashes, Which was accordingly directed to 
be done. By his afflicted Parents." 
Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. xviii, xix, xxii, 
XXV, xxxi, XXXV, xxxvi; Bk. II, ch. xviii, 
xix, xxvi, xxvii, xxix,xxxi, xxxiii, xxxiv. 

Major Hannibal Chollop, one of the call- 
ers on Martin Chuzslewit during his sojourn 
in Eden. 

Mr Chollop waSj of course, one of the most 
remarkable men in the country; but he really 
was a notorious person besides. He was usu- 
ally described by his friends, in the South and 
West, as " a splendid sample of our na-tive 
raw material, Sir," and was much esteemed 
for his devotion to rational Liberty; for the 
better propagation whereof he usually carried 
a brace of revolving-pistols in his coat pocket, 
with seven barrels apiece. He also carried, 
amongst other trinkets, a sword-stick, which 
he called his " Tickler ; " and a great knife, 
which (for he was a man of a pleasant turn 
of humour) he called " Ripper," in allusion to 
its usefulness as a means of ventilating the 
47 



MAJOR HANNIBAL CHOLLOP 

stomach of any adversary in a close contest. 
He had used these weapons with distinguished 
etfect in several instances, all duly chronicled 
in the newspapers; and was greatly beloved 
for the gallant manner in which he had 
" jobbed out " the eye of one gentleman, as 
he was in the act of knocking at his own 
street-door. 

Mr. Chollop was a man of a roving dispo- 
sition; and, in any less advanced community, 
might have been mistaken for a violent vaga- 
bond. But his fine qualities being perfectly 
understood and appreciated in those regions 
where his lot was cast, and where he had 
many kindred spirits to consort with, he may 
be regarded as having been born under a for- 
tunate star, which is not always the case 
with a man so much before the age in which 
he lives. Preferring, with a view to the 
gratification of his tickling and ripping 
fancies, to dwell upon the outskirts of so- 
ciety, and in the more remote towns and ci- 
ties, he was in the habit of emigrating from 
place to place, and establishing in each some 
business — usually a newspaper — which he 
presently sold: for the most part closing the 
bargain by challenging, stabbing, pistolling, or 
gouging, the new editor, before he had quite 
taken possession of the property. 

He had come to Eden on a speculation of 
48 



MR. CHUFFEY 



this kind, but had abandoned it, and was 
about to leave. He always introduced him- 
self to strangers as a worshipper of Freedom; 
was the consistent advocate of Lynch law, 
and slavery; and invariably recommended, 
both in print and speech, the " tarring and 
feathering" of any unpopular person who 
differed from himself. He called this " plant- 
ing the standard of civilisation in the "wilder 
gardens of My country." 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxxiii, xxxiv. 

Mr. Chuffey, Mr. Anthony Chuszlewit's 
clerk. He understood no one hut his master, 
to whom he was faithful as a dog and as a 
dog he was treated by the scoundrel Jonas 
Chuzslewit. He was a witness of the at- 
tempted poisoning of his father by this pre- 
cious son. 

The door of a small glass office, which was 
partitioned off from the rest of the room, was 
slowly opened, and a little blear-eyed, weazen- 
faced, ancient man came creeping out. He 
was of a remote fashion, and dusty, like the 
rest of the furniture; he was dressed in a 
decayed suit of black; with breeches gar- 
nished at the knees with rusty wisps of rib- 
bon, the very paupers of shoe-strings; on the 
lower portion of his spindle legs were dingy 
worsted stockings of the same colour. He 
49 



MR. CHUFFEY 



looked as if he had been put away and for- 
gotten half a century before, and somebody 
had just found him in a lumber-closet. 

Such as he was, he came slowly creeping 
on towards the table, until at last he crept 
into the vacant chair, from which, as his dim 
taculties became conscious of the presence of 
strangers, and those strangers ladies, he rose 
again, apparently intending to make a bow. 
But he sat down once more, without having 
made it, and breathing on his shrivelled hands 
to warm them, remained with his poor blue 
nose immovable above his plate, looking at 
nothing with eyes that saw nothing, and a 
face that meant nothing. Take him in that 
state, and he was an embodiment of noth- 
ing. Nothing else. . . . 

As matters stood, nobody thought or said 
anything upon the subject; so Chuff ey fell 
back into a dark corner on one side of the 
fire-place, where he always spent his even- 
ings, and was neither seen nor heard again 
that night; save once, when a cup of tea was 
given him, in which he was seen to soak his 
bread mechanically. There was no reason to 
suppose that he went to sleep at these seasons, 
or that he heard, or saw, or felt, or thought. 
He remained, as it were, frozen up — if any 
term expressive of such vigorous process can 
be applied to him — until he was again 
SO 



JONAS CHUZZLEWIT 



thawed for the moment by a word or touch 
from Anthony. 

Martin Chusdewit, ch. xi, xviii, xix, xxv, 
xlvi, xlviii, xlix, U, liv. 

Jonas Chuzzlewit, son of Anthony and 
nephew of old Martin Chuszlewit. Sly, cun- 
ning, ignorant and brutal. His motto is 
"Do other men; for they would do you." 
He attempts to poison his father and believes 
he has done so. But Chuffey, his father's old 
clerk, frustrated his plans. He married the 
youngest daughter of Mr. Pecksniff, believ- 
ing she would come into money and treats her 
brutally. He becomes associated with Mon- 
tague Tigg, the swindling^ director of the 
Anglo-Bengalee Loan & Life Insurance Co., 
and finally murders him, because of the se- 
crets he believes him to possess. The crime 
is traced to him, he is arrested, and poisons 
himself on his way to prison. 

The education of Mr. Jonas had been con- 
ducted from his cradle on the strictest prin- 
ciples of the main chance. The very first 
word he learnt to spell was " gain," and the 
second (when he got into two syllables), 
"money." But for two results, which were 
not clearly foreseen perhaps by his watchful 
parent in the beginning, his training may be 
51 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 



said to have been unexceptionable. One of 
these flaws was, that having been long taught 
by his father to over-reach everybody, he had 
imperceptibly acquired a love of over-reaching 
that venerable monitor himself. The other, that 
from his early habits of considering everything 
as a question of property, he had gradually come 
to look, with impatience, on his parent as a 
certain amount of personal estate, which had 
no right whatever to be going at large, but 
ought to be secured in that particular descrip- 
tion of iron safe which is commonly called a 
coffin, and banked in the grave. 
Martin Chusslewit, ch. iv, vUi, xi, xviii-xx, 

xxiv, xxvi, xxvii, xxxviii, xl-xliii, xliv, 

xlvi-xlviii, li. 

Martin Chuzzlewit (the elder), is the 
brother of Anthony and the grandfather of 
young Martin. He quarrelled with and 
disowned him, the only one of all his fawning 
relatives for whom he ever cared. For pur- 
poses of his own he goes to live in Pecksniff's 
house, pretending to be on friendly terms with 
him. Young Martin returns from America 
humble and penitent, but Pecksniff drives him 
away. At last, however, when he finds his 
grandson true and Pecksniff and all his cov- 
etous relatives false, he makes ample amends. 

52 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 



" I am a rich man. Not so rich as some sup- 
pose, perhaps, but yet wealthy. I am not a 
miser. Sir, though even that charge is made 
against me, as I hear, and currently believed. 
I have no pleasure in hoarding. I have no 
pleasure in \he possession of money. The 
devil that we call by that name can give me 
nothing but unhappiness." . . . 

" For the same reason that I am not a 
hoarder of money I am not lavish of it. 
Some people find their gratification in stor- 
ing it up; and others theirs in parting with 
it; but I have no gratification connected with 
the thing. Pain and bitterness are the only 
goods it ever could procure for me. I hate 
it. It is a spectre walking before me through 
the world, making every social pleasure hide- 
ous." . . . 

" You would advise me for my peace of 
mind, to get rid of this source of misery, and 
transfer it to some one who could bear it bet- 
ter. Even you, perhaps, would rid me of 
a burden under which I suffer so grievously. 
But that is a main part of my trouble. In 
other hands, I have known money do good; 
in other hands I have known it triumphed in, 
and boasted of with reason, as the master-key 
to all the brazen gates that close upon the 
paths to worldly honour, fortune, and enjoy- 
ment. To what man or woman; to what 
53 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 



worthy, honest, incorruptible creature; shall 
I confide such a talisman either now or when 
I die? Do you know any such person? 
Your virtues are of course inestimable, but 
can you tell me of any other living creature 
who will bear the test of contact with my- 
self?" 

" You have heard of him whose misery 
(the gratification of his own foolish wish) 
was, that he turned everything he touched to 
gold. The curse of my existence, and the 
realization of my own mad desire, is that by 
the golden standard which I bear about me, I 
am doomed to try the metal of all other men, 
and find it false and hollow." 

" I tell you, man, that I have gone, a rich 
man, among people of all grades and kinds; 
relatives, friends, and strangers; among peo- 
ple in whom, when I was poor, I had confi- 
dence, and justly, for they never once de- 
ceived me then, or, to me, wronged each 
other. But I have never found one nature, 
no, not one, in which, being wealthy and 
alone I was not forced to detect the latent 
corruption that lay hid within it, waiting for 
such as I to bring it forth. Treachery, de- 
ceit, and low design; hatred of competitors, 
real or fancied, for my favour; meanness, 
falsehood, baseness, and serviHty; or," and 
here he looked closely in his cousin's eyes, 
54 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 



" or an assumption of honest independence, 
almost worse than all; these are the beauties 
which my wealth has brought to light. 
Brother against brother, child against par- 
ent, friends treading on the faces of friends, 
this is the social company by which my way 
has been attended. There are stories told — 
they may be true or false — of rich men, 
who, in the garb of poverty, have found out 
virtue and rewarded it. They were dolts and 
idiots for their pains. They should have 
made the search in their own characters. 
They should have shown themselves fit objects 
to be robbed and preyed upon and plotted 
against and adulated by any knaves, who, 
but for joy, would have spat upon their coffins 
when they died their dupes; and then their 
search would have ended as mine has done, 
and they would be what I am." 

" Hear me to an end; judge what profit you 
are like to gain from any repetition of this 
visit; and leave me. I have so corrupted 
and changed the nature of all those who 
have ever attended on me, by breeding avari- 
cious plots and hopes within them ; I have en- 
gendered such domestic strife and discord, by 
tarrying even with members of my own fam- 
ily ; I have been such a lighted torch in peace- 
ful homes, kindling up all the bad gases and 
vapours in their moral atmosphere, which, 
55 



MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 



but for me, might have proved harmless to 
the end; that I have, I may say, fled from all 
who knew me, and taking refuge in secret 
places have lived, of late, the life of one who 
is hunted. The young girl whom you just 
now saw . . . is an orphan child, whom, 
with one steady purpose, I have bred and 
educated, or, if you prefer the word, adopted. 
For a year or more she has been my con- 
stant companion, and she is my only one. 
I have taken, as she knows, a solemn oath 
never to leave her sixpence when I die, but 
while I live, I make her an annual allow- 
ance: not extravagant in its amount, and yet 
not stinted. There is a compact between us 
that no term of affectionate cajolery shall 
ever be addressed by either to the other, but 
that she call me always by my Christian 
name, I her, by hers. She is bound to me in 
life by ties of interest, and losing by my 
death, and having no expectation disap- 
pointed, will mourn it, perhaps: though for 
that I care little. This is the only kind of 
friend I have or will have. Judge from such 
premises what a profitable hour you have 
spent in coming here, and leave me; to re- 
turn no more." 

Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. Hi, iv, x, xxiv, xxx, 
xxxi, xliii, l-liv. 



56 



MRS. CLENMAN 



Mrs. Clenman is the supposed mother of 
Arthur Clenman, who was, however, the 
child of another woman by her husband 
whom his father had known before marrying. 
She keeps the secret as long as she can and 
in spite of her professions of morality, sup- 
presses a will by which little Dorrit was to 
benefit on coming of age. But her guilt was 
discovered and she throws herself on the 
mercy of the girl, who freely forgives her. 

On a black bier-like sofa in this hollow, 
propped up behind with one great angular 
bolster, like the block at a state execution in 
the good old times, sat his mother in a 
widow's dress. 

She and his father had been at variance 
from his earliest remembrance. To sit 
speechless himself in the midst of rigid si- 
lence, glancing in dread from the one averted 
face to the other, had been the peacefulest 
occupation of his childhood. She gave him 
one glassy kiss, and four stiff fingers muffled 
in worsted. This embrace concluded, he sat 
down on the opposite side of her little table. 
There was a fire in the grate, as there had 
been night and day for fifteen years. There 
was a kettle on the hob, as there had been 
night and day for fifteen years. There was a 
little mound of damped ashes on the top of 
the fire, and another little mound swept to- 
57 



MRS. CLENMAN 



gether under the grate, as there had been 
night and day for fifteen years. There was a 
smell of black dye in the airless room, which 
the fire had been drawing out of the crape and 
stuff of the widow's dress for fifteen months, 
and out of the bier-like sofa for fifteen years. 

Stern of face and unrelenting of heart, she 
would sit all day behind a bible — bound, like 
her own construction of it, in the hardest, 
barest, and straitest boards, with one dinted 
ornament on the cover like the drag of a 
chain, and a wrathful sprinkling of red upon 
the edges of the leaves — as if it, of all books ! 
were a fortification against sweetness of tem- 
per, natural affection, and gentle intercourse. 

She read certain passages aloud — sternly, 
fiercely, wrathfully — praying that her ene- 
mies (she made them by her tone and man- 
ner expressly hers) might be put to the edge 
of the sword, consumed by fire, smitten by 
plagues and leprosy, that their bones might 
be ground to dust, and that they might be 
utterly exterminated. . . . 

Woe to the suppliant, if such a one there 
were or ever had been, who had any conces- 
sion to look for in the inexorable face at the 
cabinet. Woe to the defaulter whose appeal 
lay to the tribunal where those severe eyes 
presided. Great need had the rigid woman 
of her mystical religion, veiled in gloom and 
58 



COMPEYSON 



darkness, with lightnings of cursing, ven- 
geance, and destruction, flashing through the 
sable clouds. Forgive us our debts as we for- 
give our debtors, was a prayer too poor in 
spirit for her. Smite Thou my debtors, Lord, 
wither them, crush them; do Thou as I 
would do, and Thou shalt have my worship: 
this was the impious tower of stone she built 
up to scale Heaven. 
Little Dorrit, Book I , ch. lii-v, vUi, xv, 

xxix, xxx; Book II, ch. x, xvii, xxiii, 

xxviii, xxx, xxxi. 

CoMPEYSON, the man who heartlessly de- 
ceived and robbed Miss Havisham, sank 
deeper and deeper into crime and became 
" The worst of scoundrels/' a convict who 
helped to convict his accomplice and tool, 
Magwitch, and zvho betrayed him after his 
escape from the hulks. 

This man was dressed in coarse grey, too, 
and had a great iron on his leg, and was lame, 
and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that 
the other man was ; except that he had not the 
same face, and had a flat, broad-brimmed, 
low-crowned felt hat one. All this I saw in a 
moment, for I had only a moment to see it in : 
he swore an oath at me, made a hit at me — 
it was a round, weak blow that missed me 
And almost knocked himself down, for it 
59 



COMPEYSON 



made him stumble— and then he ran into 
the midst, stumbling twice as he went, and 
I lost him. . . 

A showy man, not to be, without ignorance 
or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman; be- 
cause no man who was not a true gentle- 
man at heart, ever was, since the world 
began, a true gentleman in manner. No 
varnish can hide the grain of the wood; the 
more varnish you put on, the more the grain 
will express itself. This man pursued Miss 
Havisham closely, and professed to be de- 
voted to her, and she passionately loved him. 
There is no doubt that she perfectly idolized 
him. He practised on her affection in that 
systematic way, that he got great sums ^ of 
money from her, and he induced her to buy 
her brother out of a share in the brewery 
(which had been weakly left him by his 
father) at an immense price, on the plea that 
when he was her husband he must hold and 
manage it all. . . . The marriage day was 
fixed, the wedding dresses were bought, the 
wedding tour was planned out, the wedding 
guests were invited. The day came, but not 
the bridegroom. He wrote a letter which she 
received when she was dressing for her mar- 
riage. At twenty minutes to nine. At which 
she afterwards stopped all the clocks. 
Great Expectations, ch. Hi, v, xliii, xlv, xlvii, 

I, liii-lvi. 

60 



JERRY CRUNCHER 



Jerry Cruncher, a body-snatcher and mes- 
senger outside Tellson's Bank in London. 
After his experiences during the reign of Ter- 
ror in Paris he gives up the first named occu- 
pation. 

He was an odd-job-man, an occasional por- 
ter and messenger, who served as the Hve sign 
of the house. He was never absent during 
business hours, unless upon an errand, and 
then he was represented by his son: a grisly 
urchin of twelve, who was his express image. 
People understood that Tellson's, in a stately 
way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The house 
had always tolerated some person in that ca- 
pacity, and time and tide had drifted this 
person to the post. His surname was 
Cruncher, and on the youthful occasion of his 
renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in 
the easterly parish church of Hounsditch, he 
had received the added appellation of Jerry. 

He had eyes that assorted very well, being 
of a surface black, with no depth in the colour 
or form, and much too near together — as 
if they were afraid of being found out in 
something, singly, if they kept too far apart. 
They had a sinister expression, under an old 
cocked-hat like a three-cornered spittoon, and 
over a great muffler for the chin and throat, 
which descended nearly to the wearer's knees. 
When he stopped for drink, he moved this 
6i 



JERRY CRUNCHER 



muffler with his left hand, only while he 
poured his liquor in with his right; as soon 
as that was done, he muffled again. . . . 
Except on the crown, which was raggedly 
bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing 
jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill 
almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so 
like smith's work, so much more like the top 
of a strongly spiked wall than a head of 
hair, that the best of players at leap-frog 
might have declined him, as the most danger- 
ous man in the world to go over. . . . 

Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he 
had been up all night at a party which had 
taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry 
Cruncher worried his breakfast rather than 
ate it, growling over it like any four-footed 
inmate of a menagerie. Towards nine 
o'clock he smoothed his ruffled aspect, and, 
presenting as respectable and business-like an 
exterior as he could overlay his natural self 
with, issued forth to the occupation of the 
day. 

It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite 
of his favorite description of himself as " a 
honest tradesman." His stock consisted of 
a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed 
chair cut down, which stool, young Jerry, 
walking at his father's side, carried every 
morning to beneath the banking-house win- 
63 



JAMES CARKER 



dow that was nearest Temple Bar : where, 
with the addition of the first handful of straw 
that could be gleaned from any passing vehi- 
cle to keep the cold and wet from the odd- 
job-man's feet, it formed the encampment 
for the day. On this post of his, Mr. 
Cruncher was as well known to Fleet-street 
and the Temple, as the Bar itself, — and was 
almost as ill-looking. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, ch. ii, Hi; Book 

II, ch. i-iii, vi, xiv, xxiv; Book III, ch, 

vii-ix, xiv. 

James Carker, the Managing Clerk of 
Domhey and Son. Though he has an interest 
in the business he speculates on his own ac- 
count and makes a fortune. He does all he 
can to widen the breach between Mr. Dom- 
bey and his cold, proud wife, and to revenge 
herself on both, she consents to elope with 
him, leaving him, however, at the moment of 
their meeting at Dijon, whither they had Ued 
by separate routes. Dombey had followed 
them, and in trying to avoid him Carker is run 
over and killed by a train. 

Mr. Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight 
or forty years old, of a florid complexion, and 
with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth, 
whose regularity and whiteness were quite 
distressing. It was impossible to escape the 
63 



JAMES CARKER 



observation of them, for he showed them 
whenever he spoke; and bore so wide a smile 
upon his countenance (a smile, however, very 
rarely, indeed, extending beyond his mouth), 
that there was something in it like the snarl 
of a cat. He affected a stiff white cravat, 
after the example of his principal, and was 
always closely buttoned up and tightly 
dressed. His manner towards Mr. Dombey 
was deeply conceived and perfectly expressed. 
He was familiar with him, in the very ex- 
tremity of his sense of the distance between 
them. " Mr. Dombey, to a man in your po- 
sition from a man in mine, there is no show 
of subservience compatible with the transac- 
tion of business between us, that I should 
think sufficient. I frankly tell you. Sir, I 
give it up altogether. I feel that I could not 
satisfy my own mind; and Heaven knows, 
Mr. Dombey, you can afford to dispense with 
the endeavour." li he had carried these 
words about with him printed on a placard, 
and had constantly offered it to Mr. Dom- 
bey's perusal on the breast of his coat, he 
could not have been more explicit than he 
was. This was Mr. Carker the Manager. 
. . . The Manager sat at his desk, smooth 
and soft as usual, reading those letters which 
were reserved for him to open, backing 
them occasionally with such memoranda and 
64 



JAMES CARKER 



references as their business purport required, 
and parcelling them out into little heaps for 
distribution through the several departments 
of the House. The post had come in heavy 
that morning, and Mr. Carker the Manager 
had a good deal to do. 

The general action of a man so engaged — 
pausing to look over a bundle of papers in 
his hand, dealing them round in various por- 
tions, taking up another bundle and examin- 
ing its contents with knitted brows and 
pursed-out lips — dealing, and sorting, and 
pondering by turns — would easily suggest 
some whimsical resemblance to a player at 
cards. The face of Mr. Carker the Manager 
was in good keeping with such a fancy. It 
was the face of a man who studied his play, 
warily: who made himself master of all the 
strong and weak points of the game: who 
registered the cards in his mind as they fell 
about him^ knew exactly what was on them, 
what they missed, and what they made: who 
was crafty to find out what the other play- 
ers held, and who never betrayed his own 
hand. 

The letters were in various languages, but 
Mr. Carker the Manager read them all. If 
there had been anything in the offices of 
Dombey and Son that he could not read, there 
would have been a card wanting in the pack. 
65 



JAMES CARKER 



He read almost at a glance, and made com- 
binations of one letter with another and one 
business with another as he went on, adding 
new matter to the heaps — much as a man 
would know the cards at sight, and work out 
their combinations in his mind after they 
were' turned. Something too deep for a part- 
ner, and much too deep for an adversary, Mr. 
Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the 
sun that came down slaniing on him through 
the skylight, playing his game alone. 

And although it is not among the instincts 
wild or domestic of the cat tribe to play at 
cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr. 
Carker the Manager, as he basked in the strip 
of summer-light and warmth that shone upon 
his table and the ground as if they were a 
crooked dial-plate, and himself the only figure 
on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in 
colour at all times, but feebler than common 
in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat 
of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails, 
nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural 
antipathy to any speck of dirt, which made 
him pause sometimes and watch the falling 
motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth 
white hand or glossy linen: Mr. Carker the 
Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft 
of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel 
of heart, nice of habit, sat with a dainty 
66 



MR. JOHN CARKER 



steadfastness and patience at his work, as if 

he were waiting at a mouse's hole. 

Dombey and Son, ch. xiii, xvii, xxii, xxiv, 

xxvi, xxvii, xxxi, xxxiii, xxxvi, xxxvii, xl, 

xlii, xlv, xlvii, liii-lv. 

Mr. John Carker, brother of James and 
Harriet. In his youth he had been led astray 
and robbed his employers Dombey & Son. 
The House, however, kept him on in a sub- 
ordinate position and he expiated his fault 
by long, faithful service and by the treatment, 
of his younger brother — the manager. 
When the latter meets with a violent death, 
he comes into his fortune, but he secretly 
makes over the interest of it to Mr. Dombey, 
who has become a bankrupt in the meantime. 

Mr. Carker, the Junior, was his brother, 
two or three years older than he, but widely 
removed in station. The younger brother's 
post was on the top of the official ladder; 
the elder brother's at the bottom. The elder 
brother never gained a stave, or raised his 
foot to mount one. Young men passed above 
his head, and rose and rose; but he was al- 
ways at the bottom. He was quite resigned 
to occupy that low condition; never com- 
plained of it; and certainly never hoped to 
escape from it." ... He was not old, but 
67 



MR. CHEERYBLE 



his hair was white; his body was bent, or 
bowed as if by the weight of some great trou- 
ble; and there were deep lines in his worn 
and melancholy face. The fire of his eyes, 
the expression of his features, the very voice 
in which he spoke, were all subdued and 
quenched, as if the spirit within him lay in 
ashes. He was respectably, though very 
plainly dressed, in black; but his clothes, 
moulded to the general character of his figure, 
seemed to shrink and abase themselves upon 
him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation 
which the whole man from head to foot ex- 
pressed, to be left unnoticed, and alone in his 
humility. 

Domhey and Son, ch. vi, xix, xxii, xxxiii, 
xxxiv, liii, Iviii, Ixii. 

Mr. Cheeryble. The Cheeryble brothers 
were partners and merchants : among the nu- 
merous people they benefited was Nicholas 
Nickleby — whom they took into their employ 
and befriended in every way. 

He was a sturdy old fellow in a broad- 
skirted blue coat, made pretty large, to fit 
easily, and with no particular waist; his bulky 
legs clothed in drab breeches and high gaiters, 
and his head protected by a low-crowned 
broad-brimmed white hat^ such as a wealthy 
grazier might wear. He wore his coat but- 
68 



MR. CHEERYBLE 



toned; and his dimpled double-chin rested in 
the folds of a white neckerchief — not one of 
your stiff-starched apoplectic cravats, but a 
good easy old-fashioned white neckcloth that 
a man might go to bed in and be none the 
worse for it. But what principally attracted 
the attention of Nicholas, was the old gentle- 
man's eye, — never was such a clear, twink- 
ling, honest, merry, happy eye, as that. And 
there he stood, looking a little upward, with 
one hand thrust into the breast of his coat, 
and the other playing with his old-fashioned 
gold watch-chain: his head thrown a little on 
one side, and his hat a little more on one 
side than his head (but that was evidently ac- 
cident; not his ordinary way of wearing it), 
with such a pleasant smile playing about his 
mouth, and such a comical expression of 
mingled slyness, simplicity, kind-heartedness, 
and good-humour, lighting up his jolly old 
face, that Nicholas would have been content 
to have stood there and looked at him until 
evening, and to have forgotten meanwhile that 
there was such a thing as a soured mind or a 
crabbed countenance to be met with in the 
whole wide world. . . . 

Everything [in the house of Cheeryble 
Brothers] gave back some reflection of the 
kindly spirit of the brothers. The ware- 
housemen and porters were such sturdy jolly 
69 



DR. CHILLIP 



fellows that it was a treat to see them. 
Among the shipping-announcements and 
steam-packet lists which decorated the count- 
ing-house wall, were designs for almshouses, 
statements of charities, and plans for new 
hospitals. A blunderbuss and two swords 
hung above the chimney piece for the terror 
of evil-doers, but the blunderbuss was rusty, 
and shattered, and the swords were broken 
and edgeless. Elsewhere their open display 
in such a condition would have raised a smile, 
but there it seemed as though even violent 
and offensive weapons partook of the reigning 
influence and became emblems of mercy and 
forbearance. 

Nicholas Nicklehy, ch. xxxv, xxxvii, xl, xUii, 
xlvi, xlix, Iv, lix, Ix, Ixi, Ixiii, Ixv. 

Dr. Chillip, the medical man who assisted 
at David Copperiield's birth. He Hits across 
the stage of the story more than once after- 
wards. 

He was the meekest of his sex, the mildest 
of little men. He sidled in and out of a 
room, to take up the less space. He walked 
as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet, and more 
slowly. He carried his head on one side, 
partly in modest depreciation of himself, 
partly in modest propitiation of everybody 
else. It is nothing to say that he hadn't a 
70 



TOBY CRACKIT 



word to throw at a dog. He couldn't have 
thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have 
offered him one gently, or half a one, or a 
fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as 
he walked; but he wouldn't have been rude to 
him, and he couldn't have been quick with 
him, for any earthly consideration. 
David CopperHeld, ch. i, ii, ix, x, xxii, xxx, 
lix. 

Toby Crackit, a housebreaker. 

They entered a low dark room with a 
smoky fire: two or three broken chairs, a 
table, and a very old couch: on which, with 
his legs much higher than his head, a man 
was reposing at full length, smoking a long 
clay pipe. He was dressed in a smartly-cut 
snuff-coloured coat, with large brass buttons; 
and orange neckerchief; a coarse, staring, 
shawl-pattern waistcoat; and drab breeches. 
Mr. Crackit (for he it was) had no very great 
quantity of hair, either upon his head or face ; 
but what he had, was of a reddish dye, and 
tortured into long corkscrew curls, through 
which he occasionally thrust some very dirty 
fingers, ornamented with large common rings. 
He was a trifle above the middle size, and 
apparently rather weak in the legs; but this 
circumstance by no means detracted from his 
own admiration of his top-boots, which he 
71 



MR. CREAKLE 



contemplated, in their elevated situation, with 

lively satisfaction. 

Oliver Twist, cJi. xxiii, xxv, xxviii, xxxix, I. 

Mr. Creakle^ master of Salem House 
School, to which Copperfield was sent by the 
Murdstones — an ignorant, and ferocious 
" Tartar." He later becomes a Middlesex 
Magistrate and puts into practice " the only 
true system of prison discipline" — '^solitary 
confinement" 

Mr. Creakle's face was fiery, and his eyes 
were small, and deep in his head; he had 
thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and 
a large chin. He was bald on the top of his 
head; and had some thin wet-looking hair 
that was just turning grey, brushed across 
each temple^ so that the two sides interlaced 
on his forehead. But the circumstance about 
him which impressed me most, was, that he 
had no voice, but spoke in a whisper. The 
exertion this cost him, or the consciousness 
of talking in that feeble way, made his angry 
face so much more angry, and his thick veins 
so much thicker," when he spoke, that I am 
not surprised, on looking back, at this pecul- 
iarity striking me as his chief one. . . . 

I should think there never can have been 
a man who enjoyed his profession more than 
Mr. Creakle did. He had a delight in cutting 



MR. CREAKLE 



at the boys, which was like the satisfaction 
of a craving appetite. I am confident that 
he couldn't resist a chubby boy, especially; 
that there was a fascination in such a sub- 
ject, which made him restless in his mind, un- 
til he had scored and marked him for the 
day. I was chubby myself^ and ought to 
know. I am sure when I think of the fellow 
now, my blood rises against him with the dis- 
interested indignation I should feel if I could 
have known all about him without having 
ever been in his power; but it rises hotly, be- 
cause I know him to have been an incapable 
brute, who had no more right to be pos- 
sessed of the great trust he held, than to be 
Lord High Admiral, or Commander-in-Chief: 
in either of which capacities, it is probable 
that he would have done infinitely less mis- 
chief. ' 

Miserable little propitiators of a remorse- 
less Idol, how abject we were to him ! What 
a launch in life I think it now, on looking 
back, to be so mean and servile to a man of 
such parts and pretensions ! . . . 

[He] " was a great deal older and not im- 
proved in appearance. His face was as fiery as 
ever ; his eyes were as small and rather deeper 
set. The scanty wet-looking gray hair was 
almost gone; and the thick veins in his bald" 
head were none the less agreeable to look at. 
David Copperiield, ch. v-vii, ix, Ixi. 
73 



CAPTAIN EDWARD CUTTLE 

Captain Edward Cuttle, friend and part- 
ner of Walter Gay's uncle Solomon Gills, 
and the protector of Florence Dombey when 
she fled from her father's house. Like the 
play of Hamlet, he is " chock-full of quota- 
tions " — very much mixed as to text and 
sources, which latter he is very fertile in in- 
venting. 

A gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a 
hook instead of a hand attached to his right 
wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a 
thick stick in his left hand, covered all over 
(like his nose) with knobs. He wore a loose 
black silk handkerchief round his neck, and 
such a very large coarse shirt collar, that it 
looked like a small sail. He was evidently 
the person for whom the spare wine-glass 
was intended, and evidently knew it ; for hav- 
ing taken off his rough outer coat, and hung 
up, on a particular peg behind the door, such 
a hard glazed hat as a sympathetic person's 
head might ache at the sight of, and which 
left a red rim round his own forehead as if 
he had been wearing a tight basin, he brought 
a chair to where the clean glass was, and sat 
himself down behind it. He was usually ad- 
dressed as Captain, this visitor; and had been 
a pilot, or a skipper, or a privateer's-man, or 
all three perhaps; and was a very salt-looking 
man indeed. 

74 



CAPTAIN EDWARD CUTTLE 

His face, remarkable for a brown solidity, 
brightened as he shook hands with uncle and 
nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic dis- 
position, and merely said — 

"How goes it?" 

" All well," said Mr. Gills, pushing the bot- 
tle towards him. 

He took it up, and having surveyed and 
smelt it, said with extraordinary expression: 

"The?" 

" The" returned the instrument-maker. 

Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, 
and seemed to think they were making holi- 
day indeed. 

" Wal'r ! " he said, arranging his hair 
(which was thin) with his hook, and then 
pointing it at the instrument-maker, " Look 
at him ! Love ! Honour ! And Obey ! 
Overhaul your catchism till you find that 
passage, and when found turn the leaf down. 
Success, my boy ! " 

He was so perfectly satisfied both with his 
quotation and his reference to it, that he 
could not help repeating the words again in a 
low voice, and saying he had forgotten 'em 
these forty year. 

" But I never wanted two or three words in 
my life that I didn't know where to lay my 
hand upon 'em, Gills," he observed. " It 
comes of not wasting language as some do." 
75 



CHARLES DARNAY 



Dombey and Son, ch. iv, ix, x, xv, xvii, xix, 
xxiii, XXV, xxxii, xxxix, xlvUi-l, Ivi, Ivii, 
Ix, Ixii. 

Charles Darn ay (Charles St. Evre- 
monde), a French emigre, the son of the 
Marquis St. Evremonde. He was accused of 
being a spy in England and acquitted, after- 
wards marrying Lucie Manette. Returning 
to France during the Reign of Terror he was 
denounced as an aristocrat, thrown into prison 
and condemned to die. The heroic devotion 
of Sydney Carton, who dies in his place, saves 
him, and he and his wife and her father all 
return to England and pass the rest of their 
days in peace. 

A young man of about five-and-twenty, 
well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt 
cheek and a dark eye. His condition was that 
of a young gentleman. He was plainly 
dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his 
hair, which was long and dark, was gathered 
in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to 
be out of his way than for ornament. As an 
emotion of the mind will express itself 
through any covering of the body, so the pale- 
ness which his situation engendered came 
through the brown upon his cheek, showing 
the soul to be stronger than the sun. He 
was otherwise quite self-possessed. . . . 
76 



CHARLES DARNAY 



[He was tried and acquitted] for that he was 
a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, ex- 
cellent, and so forth, prince, our Lord the 
King, by reason of his having, on divers occa- 
sions, and by divers means and ways, assisted 
Lewis, the French King, in his wars against 
our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so 
forth ; that was to say, by coming and going, 
between the dominions of our said serene, 
illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those 
of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, 
falsely, traitorously, and otherwise evil-ad- 
verbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis 
what forces our said serene, illustrious, ex- 
cellent, and so forth, had in preparation to 
send to Canada and North America. . . . 

More months, to the number of twelve, had 
come and gone, and Mr. Charles Darnay was 
established in England as a higher teacher 
of the French language who was conversant 
with French literature. In this age, he would 
have been a Professor; in that age, he was 
a Tutor. He read with young men who could 
find any leisure and interest for the study of 
a living tongue spoken all over the world, 
and he cultivated a ^ taste for its stores of 
knowledge and fancy. He could write of 
them, besides, in sound English, and render 
them into sound English. Such masters were 
not at that time easily found; Princes that 
77 



CHARLES DARNAY 



had been, and Kings that were to be, were not 
yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined no- 
bility had dropped out of Tellson's ledgers to 
turn cooks and carpenters. As a tutor, whose 
attainments made the student's way unusually 
pleasant and profitable, and as an elegant 
translator who brought something to his work 
besides mere dictionary knowledge, young, Mr. 
Darnay soon became known and encouraged. 
He was well acquainted, moreover, with the 
circumstances of his country, and those were 
of ever-growing interest. So, with great per- 
severance and untiring industry, he pros- 
pered. 

In London, he had expected neither to walk 
on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of 
roses; if he had had any such exalted expec- 
tation, he would not have prospered. He had 
expected labour, and he found it, and did it, 
and made the best of it. In this, his prosper- 
ity consisted. 

A certain portion of his time was passed 
at Cambridge, where he read with under- 
graduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who 
drove a contraband trade in European lan- 
guages, instead of conveying Greek and Latin 
through the Custom-house. The rest of his 
time he passed in London. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, ch. ii-vi, ix, 

X, xvi-xvm, XX, xxi, xxiv; Book III/ ch. 

i-vii, ix-xv. 

78 



ROSA DARTLE 



Rosa Dartle, Mrs. Steerforth's companion; 
in love with her son — who does not recipro- 
cate her affection. 

[She was] of slight short figure, dark, and 
not agreeable to look at, but witfi some ap- 
pearance of good looks too, who attracted 
my attention : perhaps because I had not ex- 
pected to see her; perhaps because I found 
myself sitting opposite to her; perhaps be- 
cause of something really remarkable in her. 
She had black hair and eager black eyes, and 
was thin, and had a scar upon her lip. It 
was an old scar — I should rather call it, 
seam, for it was not discoloured, and had 
healed years ago — which had once cut 
through her mouth, downward towards the 
chin, but was now barely visible across the 
table, except above and on her upper lip, the 
shape of which it had altered. I concluded 
in my own mind that she was about thirty 
years of age, and that she wished to be mar- 
ried. She was a little dilapidated — like a 
house — with having been so long to let; yet 
had, as I have said, an appearance of good 
looks. Her thinness seemed to be the effect 
of some wasting fire within her, which found 
a vent in her gaunt eyes. 

She was introduced as Miss Dartle and 
both Steerforth and his mother called her 
Rosa. I found that she lived there, and had 
79 



ROSA DARTLE 



been for a long time Mrs. Steerforth's com- 
panion. It appeared to me that she never 
said anything she wanted to say, outright; 
but hinted it, and made a great deal more of 
it by this practice. For example, when Mrs. 
Steerforth observed, more in jest than earn- 
est, that she feared her son led but a wild life 
at college, Miss Dartle put in thus: 

" Oh, really ? You know how ignorant I 
am, and that I only ask for information, but 
isn't it always so? I thought that kind of 
life was on all hands understood to be — eh ? " 
. . . I could not help glancing at the scar 
with a painful interest when we went in to tea. 
It was not long before I observed that it was 
the most susceptible part of her face, and that, 
when she turned pale, that mark altered first, 
and became a dull, lead-coloured streak, 
lengthening out to its full extent, like a mark 
in invisible ink brought to the fire. . . . 

[Steerforth] asked me what I thought of 
her. 

" She is very clever, is she not ? " I asked. 

" Clever ! She brings everything to a 
grindstone," said Steerforth, " and sharpens 
it, as she has sharpened her own face and fig- 
ure these years past. She has worn herself 
away by constant sharpening. She is all 
edge." 

" What a remarkable scar that is upon her 
lip ! " I said. 

80 



JOHN DAWKINS 



Steerforth's face fell, and he paused a mo- 
ment. 

'' Why, the fact is," he returned, " — / did 
that. ... I was a young boy, and she ex- 
asperated me, and I threw a hammer at her. 
A promising young angel I must have been ! 
. . . She has borne the mark ever since, 
as you see, and she'll bear it to her grave, if 
she ever rests in one; though I can hardly be- 
lieve she will ever rest anywhere. She was 
the motherless child of a sort of cousin of my 
father's. He died one day. My mother, who 
was then a widow, brought her here to be 
company to her. She has a couple of thou- 
sand pounds of her own, and saves the inter- 
est of it every year, to add to the principal. 
There's the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for 
you." 
David Copperiield, ch. xx, xxi, xxiv, xxix, 

xxxiii, xxxvi, xlvi, I, Ivi, Ixiv. 

John Dawkins, alias " The Artful 
Dodger" a pickpocket in the service of Fagin 
the Jew. He encountered Oliver Twist and 
took him to Fagin's den. Clever as he was 
in thieving and knavery, he was caught at last 
and sentenced to transportation for life. 

He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common- 
faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as 
one would wish to see; but he had about him 
8i 



JOHN DAWKINS 



all the airs and manners of a man. He was 
short of his age: with rather bow-legs, and 
little, sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck 
on the top of his head so lightly, that it 
threatened to fall off every moment; and 
would have done so, very often, if the wearer 
had not had a knack of every now and then 
giving his head a sudden twitch, which 
brought it back to its old place again. He 
wore a man's coat, which reached nearly to 
his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half- 
way up his arm, to get his hands out of the 
sleeves: apparently with the ultimate view 
of thrusting them into the pockets of his cor- 
duroy trousers; for there he kept them. He 
was, altogether, as roystering and swagger- 
ing a young gentleman as ever stood four 
feet six, or something less, in his bluchers. 
. . . Oliver discovered that his friend's 
name was Jack Dawkins, and that he was a 
peculiar pet and protege of the elderly gentle- 
man before mentioned (Fagin). 

Mr. Dawkins's appearance did not say a 
vast deal in favour of the comforts which his 
patron's interest obtained for those whom he 
took under his protection; but, as he had a 
rather flightly and dissolute mode of convers- 
ing, and furthermore avowed that among his 
intimate friends he was better known by the 
sobriquet of " The artful Dodger," Oliver 
82 



LADY HONORIA DEDLOCK 

I 

concluded that, being of a dissipated and care- 
less turn, the moral precepts of his benefactor 
had hitherto been thrown away upon him. 
Under this impression, he secretly resolved 
to cultivate the good opinion of the old gen- 
tleman as quickly as possible; and, if he found 
the Dodger incorrigible, as he more than half 
expected he should, to decline the honour of 
his farther acquaintance. 

Oliver Twist, ch. viii-x, xii, xiii, xvi, xvii, 
xix, XXV, xxxix, xliii. 

Lady Honoria' Deblock, consort of Sir 
Leicester Dedlock. She was the mother of 
Esther Summerson by Capt. Hawdon, a gay 
rake who abandoned her without marriage — 
Sir Leicester knows nothing of this, but others 
come into possession of the secret and her 
efforts to prevent it from coming to light lead 
to her flight from home and her miserable 
death from shame, remorse and exposure at 
the gate of the miserable churchyard in which 
the father of her child was buried — where 
also lies the unfortunate "Jo," to whom he 
was " werry good, he wos." Proud, cold and 
haughty as she was, she always had some af- 
fection for her earlier lover — and for her 
child. 

[Lady Dedlock] had beauty, pride, ambi- 
tion, insolent resolve, and sense enough to 



LADY HONORIA DEDLOCK 

portion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth 
and station, added to these, soon floated her 
upward; and for years, now, my Lady Ded- 
lock has been at the centre of the fashionable 
intelligence, and at the top of the fashionable 
tree. 

How Alexander wept when he had no more 
worlds to conquer, everybody knows — or has 
some reason to know by this time, the matter 
having been rather frequently mentioned. 
My Lady Dedlock, having conquered her 
world, fell, not into the rnelting, but rather 
into the freezing mood. An exhausted com- 
posure, a worn-out placidity, an equanimity 
of fatigue not to be ruffled by interest or sat- 
isfaction, are the trophies of her victory. 
She is perfectly well-bred. If she could be 
translated to Heaven to-morrow, she might 
be expected to ascend without any rapture. 

She has beauty still, and, if it be not in its 
heyday, it is not yet in its autumrt. She has 
a fine face — originally of a character that 
would be rather called very pretty than hand- 
some, but improved into classicality by the 
acquired expression of her fashionable state. 
Her figure is elegant, and has the effect of 
being tall. Not that she is so, but that " the 
most is made," as the Honourable Bob Stables 
has frequently asserted upon oath, " of all her 
points." The same authority observes, that 
84 



LADY HONORIA DEBLOCK 

she is perfectly got up; and remarks, in com- 
mendation of her hair especially, that she is the 
best-groomed woman in the whole stud. . . 
There is this remarkable circumstance to 
be noted in everything associated with my 
Lady Dedlock as one of class — as one of the 
leaders and representatives of her little 
world. She supposes herself to be an in- 
scrutable Being, quite out of the reach and 
ken of ordinary mortals — seeing herself in 
her glass, where indeed she looks so. Yet, 
every dim little star revolving about her, 
from her maid to the manager of the Italian 
Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, fol- 
lies, haughtinesses, and caprices; and lives 
upon as accurate a calculation and as nice a 
measure of her moral nature, as her dress- 
maker takes of her physical proportions. Is 
a new dress, a new custom, a new singer, a 
new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new 
dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, 
to be set up? There are deferential people, 
in a dozen callings, whom my Lady Dedlock 
suspects of nothing but prostration before her, 
who can tell you how to manage her as if she 
were a baby; who do nothing but nurse her 
all their lives; who, humbly affecting to fol- 
low with profound subservience, lead her and 
her whole troop after them; who, in hooking 
one, hook all and bear them off, as Lemuel 



SIR LEICESTER DEBLOCK 

Gulliver bore away the stately fleet of the 

majestic Lilliput. 

Bleak House, ch. ii, vU, ix, xii, xv, xviii, 

xxviii, xxix, xxxiii, xxxvi,xxxix-xli, xlviii, 

Uii-lvUi. 

Sir Leicester Deblock, a typical represent- 
ative of one of the great county families of 
England. (See Lady Dedlock.) 

Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but 
there is no mightier baronet than he. His 
family is as old as the hills, and infinitely 
more respectable. He has a general opinion 
that the world might get on without hills, but 
would be done up without Dedlocks. He 
would on the whole admit Nature to be a 
good idea (a little low, perhaps, when not en- 
closed with a park- fence), but an idea de- 
pendent for its execution on your great county 
families. He is a gentleman of strict con- 
science, disdainful of all littleness and mean- 
ness, and ready, on the shortest notice, to die 
any death you may please to mention rather 
than give occasion for the least impeachment 
of his integrity. He is an honourable, obsti- 
nate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely preju- 
diced, perfectly unreasonable man. 

Sir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, 
older than my Lady. He will never see sixty- 
five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet 
86 



MONSIEUR ERNEST DEFARGE 



sixty-seven. He has a twist of the gout now 
and then, and walks a little stiffly. He is of 
a worthy presence, with his light grey hair 
and whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure 
white waistcoat, and his blue coat with bright 
buttons always buttoned. He is ceremonious, 
stately, most polite on every occasion to my 
Lady, and holds her personal attractions in 
the highest estimation. His gallantry to my 
Lady, which has never changed since he 
courted her, is the one little touch of romantic 
fancy in him. 

Indeed, he married her for love. 
Bleak House, ch. ii, vii, ix, xii, xvi, xviii, 

xxviii, xxix, xl, xliii, xlviU, liii-lvi, IvUi, 

Ixiii, Ixvi. 

Monsieur Ernest Defarge, the ringleader 
of the revolutionists in the suburb of St. An- 
toine in Paris and keeper of a wine shop 
there. To his house Dr. Manette was taken 
when he was released from the Bastille and it 
was he who found the records in that prison 
afterwards used against Darnay. His house 
was the headquarters of the Jacquerie and 
he was known as Jacques No. 4. 

A bull-necked, martial-looking man of 
thirty, and he should have been of a hot tem- 
perament, for, although it was a bitter day, 
he wore no coat, but carried one slung over 
87 



MADAME THERESE DEFARGE 

his shoulder. His shirt-sleeves were rolled 
up, too, and his brown arms were bare to the 
elbows. Neither did he wear anything more 
on his head than his own crisply-curling short 
dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, 
with good eyes and a good bold breadth be- 
tween them. Good-humoured looking on the 
whole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently 
a man of a strong resolution and a set pur- 
pose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing 
down a narrow pass with a gulf on either 
side, for nothing would turn the man. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, ch. v, vi; 
Book II, ch. vii, XV, xvi, xxi, xxii; Book 
III, ch. i, Hi, vi, ix, x, xH, xiv, xv. 

Madame Therese Defarge, the leader of 
the Saint Antoine women revolutionaries, 
who Urst befriends and then helps betray Dr. 
Manette. She is killed in an encounter with 
Miss Pross, Lucy Manette' s maid — who in 
order to give her mistress time for Hight, re- 
fuses to admit her to a room where she was 
supposed to be in hiding. 

She was a stout woman of about [her hus- 
band's] age, with a watchful eye that seldom 
seemed to look at anything, a large hand heav- 
ily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and 
great composure of manner. There was a 
character about Madame Defarge from which 
88 



MADAME THERESE DEFARGE 

« — ■ — ■ — ■ — ' 

one might have predicated that she did not 
often make mistakes against herself in any of 
the reckonings over which she presided. 
Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was 
wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of bright 
shawl twined about her head, though not to 
the concealment of her large ear-rings. Her 
knitting was before her, but she had laid it 
down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. 
Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported 
by her left hand, Madame Defarge said noth- 
ing when her lord came in, but coughed just 
one grain of cough. This, in combination 
with the lifting of her darkly defined eye- 
brows over her toothpick by the breadth of 
a line, suggested to her husband that he would 
do well to look round the shop among the 
customers, for any new customer who had 
dropped in while he stepped over the way. 
. . . Of a strong and fearless character, of 
shrewd sense and readiness, of great deter- 
mination, of that kind of beauty which not 
only seems to impart to its possessor firmness 
and animosity, but to strike into others an 
instinctive recognition of those qualities; the 
troubled time would have heaved her up, un- 
der any circumstances. But, imbued from 
her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, 
and an inveterate hatred of a class, oppor- 
tunity had developed her into a tigress. She 
89 



MADAME THERESE DEFARGE 

was absolutely without pity. If she had ever 
had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out 
of her. ... To appeal to her, was made 
hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even 
for herself. If she had been laid low in the 
streets, in any of the many encounters in 
which she had been engaged, she would not 
have pitied herself; nor, if she had been or- 
dered to the axe to-morrow, would she have 
gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce 
desire to change places with the man who 
sent her there. 

Such a heart Madame Defarge carried un- 
der her rough robe. Carelessly worn, it was 
a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird 
way, and her dark hair looked rich under her 
coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, 
was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her 
waist, was a sharpened dagger. Thus ac- 
coutred, and walking with the confident tread 
of such a character, and with the supple free- 
dom of a woman who had habitually walked 
in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on 
the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took 
her way along the streets. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, ch. v, vi, Book 

II, ch. vii, XV, xvi, xxi, xxii; Book III, ch. 

Hi, V, vi, viii-x, xii, xiv, xv 



90 



NED DENNIS 



Ned Dennis, the hangman, was one of the 
ring-leaders of the Gordon rioters; — with the 
instinct of his profession strong within him 
he wished to ''work oif" every one who stood 
in their way and was disgusted when not al- 
lowed to do so. He aided in the burning and 
destruction of Newgate jail, but protested 
against setting free the prisoners condemned 
to death as robbing the hangman of his 
rights! When the riots were over he was 
arrested and condemned to death. He could 
not, however, believe that he would suffer the 
extreme penalty, and was confident that the 
government would pardon him, on account of 
his past services. When he finds there is no 
hope, his fear renders him abject, and he finds 
that the satisfaction he had in " working peo- 
ple off " is not shared by those who are to be 
"worked off." 

A squat, thickset personage, with a low re- 
treating forehead, a coarse shock head of 
hair, and eyes so small and near together, 
that his broken nose alone seemed to prevent 
their meeting and fusing into one of the usual 
size. A dingy handkerchief twisted like a 
cord about his neck, left its great veins ex- 
posed to view, and they were swollen and start- 
ing, as though with gulping down strong 
passions, malice, and ill-will. His dress was 
of threadbare velveteen — a faded, rusty, 
91 



NED DENNIS 



whitened black, like the ashes of a pipe or a 
coal fire after a day's extinction; discoloured 
with the soils of many a stale debauch, and 
reeking yet with pot-house odours. In lieu 
of buckles at his knees, he wore unequal loops 
of packthread; and in his grimy hands he 
held a knotted stick, the knob of which was 
carved into a rough likeness of his* own vile 
face. 

" I'm of as gen-teel a calling, brother, as 
any man in England — as light a business as 
any gentleman could desire. . . . No 
'prenticing. It comes by natur. . . . 
Look at that hand of mine — many and many 
a job that hand has done, with a neatness and 
dex-terity, never known afore. When I look 
at that hand," said Mr. Dennis, shaking it in 
the air, " and remember the helegant bits of 
work it has turned off, I feel quite mollon- 
choly to think it should ever grow old and 
feeble. But sich is life ! " 

He heaved a deep sigh as he indulged in 
these reflections, and putting his fingers with 
an absent air on Hugh's throat, and particu- 
larly under his left ear, as if he were studying 
the anatomical development of that part of 
his frame, shook his head in a despondent 
manner and actually shed tears. ... I 
may call myself a artist — a fancy workman 
— art improves natur' — that's my motto. 
92 



NED DENNIS 



That [stick] was carved by a friend of mine, 
as is now no more. The very day afore he 
died, he cut that with his pocket-knife from 
memory ! ' I'll die game,' says my friend, 
* and my last moments shall be dewoted to 
making Dennis's picter.' That's it. . . . 
He was a queer subject altogether — a kind 
of gipsy — one of the finest, stand-up men, 
you ever see. Ah ! He told me some things 
that would startle you a bit, did that friend 
of mine, on the morning when he died. 
. . . He would not have gone off half as 
comfortable without me. I had been with 
three or four of his family under the same 
circumstances. They were all fine fellows. 
. . . They all had me near 'em when they 
departed. I come in for their wardrobes too. 
This very handkecher that you see round my 
neck, belonged to him that I've been speaking 
of — him as did that likeness. . . . These 
smalls," said Dennis, rubbing his legs ; " these 
very smalls — they belonged to a friend of 
mine that's left off sich incumbrances for 
ever: this coat too — I've often walked be- 
hind this coat, in the streets, and wondered 
whether it would ever come to me: this pair 
of shoes have danced a hornpipe for ^another 
man, afore my eyes, full half-a-dozen times 
at least: and as to my hat," he said, taking 
it off, and twirling it round upon his fist — 
93 



MR. DICK 



" Lord ! I've seen this hat go up Holborn on 
the box of a hackney-coach — ah, many and 
many a day ! " 

" You don't mean, to say their old wearers 
are all dead, I hope ? " said Mr. Tappertit, 
falling a little distance from him as he spoke. 

" Every one of 'em," replied Dennis. 
" Every man Jack ! " 
Barnaby Rudge, ch. xxxv-xl, xliv, xlix, I, liii- 

liv, Ux, Ix, Ixii-lxv, Ixix-lxxi, Ixxiv-lxxvii. 

Mr. Dick (Richard Babley), a protege of 
Miss Betsey Trotwood, who professed to 
have a great opinion of his intelligence and 
the wisdom of his judgments, although he was 
a lunatic. of a mild type. 

Mr. Dick v^as grey-headed and florid: I 
should have said all about him, in saying so, 
had not his head been curiously bowed — not 
by age . . . and his grey eyes prominent 
and large, with a strange kind of watery 
brightness in them that made me, in com- 
bination with his vacant manner, his submis- 
mission to my aunt, and his childish delight 
when she praised him, suspect him of being 
a little mad; though, if he were mad, how he 
came to. be there puzzled me extremely. He 
was dressed like any other ordinary gentle- 
man, in a loose grey morning coat and waist- 
coat and white trousers; and had his watch 
94 



MR. DICK 



in his fob, and his money in his pockets: 
which he rattled as if he were very proud 
of it. . . . " Did he say anything about 
King Charles the First? . . . He is mem- 
orialising the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord 
Somebody or other — one of those people, 
at all events, who are paid to he memorial- 
ized — about his affairs. I suppose it will go 
in, one of these days. He hasn't been able to 
draw it up yet, without introducing that mode 
of expressing himself; but it don't signify; it 
keeps him employed." 

In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. 
Dick had been for upwards of ten years en- 
deavouring to keep King Charles the First out 
of the Memorial; but he had been constantly 
getting into it, and was there now. 

" I say again," said my aunt, " nobody 
knows what that man's mind is except myself; 
and he's the most amenable and friendly crea- 
ture in existence. If he likes to fly a kite 
sometimes, what of that? Franklin used to 
fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something 
of that sort, if I am not mistaken. And a 
Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous 
object than anybody else." . . . 

Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of 

friends, and very often, when his day's work 

was done, went out together to fly the great 

kite. Every day of his life he had a long sit- 

95 



MR. DICK 



ting at the Memorial, which never made the 
least progress, however hard he laboured, for 
King Charles the First always strayed into it, 
sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, 
and another one begun. The patience and 
hope with which he bore these perpetual dis- 
appointments, the mild perception he had that 
there was something wrong about King 
Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made to 
keep him out, and the certainty with which he 
came in, and tumbled the Memorial out of all 
shape, made a deep impression upon me. 
What Mr. Dick supposed would come of the 
Memorial, if it were completed; where he 
thought it was to go, or what he thought it 
was to do; he knew no more than anybody 
else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary 
that he should trouble himself with such ques- 
tions, for if anything were certain under the 
sun, it was certain that the Memorial never 
would be finished. 

It was quite an affecting sight, I used to 
think, to see him with the kite when it was 
up to a great height in the air. What he had 
told me, in his room, about his belief in its 
disseminating the statements pasted on it, 
which were nothing but old leaves of abortive 
Memorials, might have been a fancy with him 
sometimes ; but not when he was out, looking 
up at the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull 
96 



MR. DICK 



and tug at his hands. He never looked so 
serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as I 
sat by him of an evening, on a green slope, 
and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet 
air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, 
and bore it (such was my boyish thought) into 
the skys. As he wound the string in, and it 
came lower and lower down out of the beau- 
tiful light, until it fluttered to the ground, and 
lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to 
wake gradually out of a dream; and I remem- 
ber to have seen him take it up, and look about 
him in a lost way, as if they had both come 
down together, so that I pitied him with all 
my heart. ... He soon became known 
to every boy in the school; and though he 
never took an active part in any game but 
kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our 
sports as any one among us. How often have 
I seen him, intent upon a match at marbles 
or pegtop, looking on with a face of unut- 
terable interest, and hardly breathing at the 
critical times. How often, at Ijare and hounds, 
have I seen him mounted on a little knoll, 
cheering the whole field on to action, and 
waving his hat above his grey head, oblivious 
of King Charles the Martyr's head, and all be- 
longing to it ! How many a summer-hour 
have I known to be but blissful minutes to 
him in the cricket-field ! How many winter 
97 



COLONEL DIVER 



days have I seen him, standing blue-nosed, in 
the snow and east wind, looking at the boys 
going down the long slide, and clapping his 
worsted gloves in rapture ! 

He was a universal favourite, and his in- 
genuity in little things was transcendent. He 
could cut oranges into such devices as none 
of us had an idea of. He could make a boat 
out of anything, from a skewer upwards. He 
could turn crampbones into chessmen; fashion 
Roman chariots from old court cards; make 
spoked wheels out of cotton reels, and bird- 
cages of old wire. But he was greatest of all, 
perhaps, in the articles of string and straw; 
with which we were all persuaded he could 
do anything that could be done by hands. 
David Copperiield, ch. xiii-xv, xvii, xix, 

xxxiv, xxxvi, xxxviii, xlii, xliii, xlv, xlix. 

Hi, liv, Ixii, Ixiv. 

Colonel Diver, editor of " The Rozvdy 
Journal." 

A sallow gentleman, with sunken cheeks, 
black hair, small twinkling eyes, and a singu- 
lar expression hovering about that region of 
his face, which was not a frown, nor a leer, 
and yet might have been mistaken at the first 
glance for either. Indeed it would have been 
difficult, on a much closer acquaintance, to de- 
scribe it in any more satisfactory terms than 



COLONEL DIVER 



as a mixed expression of vulgar cunning and 
conceit. This gentlemen wore a rather broad- 
brimmed hat for the greater wisdom of his 
appearance; and had his arms folded for the 
greater impressiveness of his attitude. He 
was somewhat shabbily dressed in a blue sur- 
tout reaching nearly to his ankles, short loose 
trousers of the same colour, and a faded buff 
waistcoat, through which a discoloured shirt- 
frill struggled to force itself into notice, as 
asserting an equality of civil rights with the 
other portions of his dress, and maintaining 
a Declaration of Independence on its own ac- 
count. His feet, which were of unusually 
large proportions, were leisurely crossed be- 
fore him as he half leaned against, half sat 
upon, the steamboat's side; and his thick cane, 
shod with a mighty ferrule at one end and 
armed with a great metal knob at the other, 
depended from a line-and-tassel on his wrist. 
Thus attired, and thus composed into an as- 
pect of great profundity, the gentleman 
twitched up the right-hand corner of his 
mouth and his right eye, simultaneously, and 
said, once more: 

" It is in such enlightened means, that the 
bubbling passions of my country find a vent." 

"You allude to—" 

" To the Palladium of rational Liberty at 
home, Sir, and the dread of Foreign oppres- 
99 



DOMBEY AND SON 



sion abroad," returned the gentleman, as he 
pointed with his cane to an uncommonly dirty- 
newsboy with one eye. " To the Envy of the 
world. Sir, and the leaders of Human Civiliza- 
tion. Let me ask you, Sir," he added, bring- 
ing the ferrule of his stick heavily upon the 
[deck 'with the air of a man who must not be 
equivocated with, " how do you like my Coun- 
try ? " 

" I'm hardly prepared to answer that ques- 
tion yet/' said Martin, " seeing that I have not 
been ashore." 

Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxxiv. 

DoMBEY AND SoN. Mr. Dombcy was a 
wealthy, stiff, and pompous London merchant 
possessed with the idea that the universe was 
pivoted on his House.. .He ignored his daugh- 
ter Florence, and centred all his hopes and 
what affection he had on his son Paul, whose 
mother died in giving him birth. The son 
lived but a few years, and his death hardens 
the heart of the father still more. Later he 
married a proud and haughty beauty, Edith 
Granger: — who had no love for him. The 
two natures clash. His manager, Mr. Carker, 
helps to widen the breach — and Unally they 
elope — she with the sole idea of being re- 
venged on her husband. Dombcy drives his 
daughter from his home, believing her to have 
been his wife's accomplice. 

100 



DOMBEY AND SON 



His troubles prey on his mind, his business 
faculties are lost and his business is ruined 
and he is bankrupt. Finally his pride is 
broken, his obstinacy melted, and he repents of 
his injustice chiefly through the influence of 
his daughter, with whom and her husband and 
children he passes his declining years. 

Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened 
room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, 
and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket 
bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee 
immediately in front of the fire and close to it, 
as if his constitution were analogous to that 
of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him 
brown while he was very new. 

Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of 
age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. 
Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and 
though a handsome, well-made man, too stern 
and pompous in appearance, to be preposses- 
sing: one of those close-shaved, close-cut 
moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and crisp 
like new bank-notes, and who seem to be arti- 
ficially braced and tightened as by the stimu- 
lating action of golden shower-baths. Son 
was very bald, and very red, and though (of 
course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat 
crushed and spotty in his general effect, as 
yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his 
brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree 

lOI 



DOMBEY AND SON 



that was to come down in good time — re- 
morseless twins they are for striding through 
their human forests, notching as they go — 
while the 'countenance of Son was crossed 
and recrossed with a thousand little creases, 
which the same deceitful Time would take 
delight in smoothing out and wearing away 
with the flat part of his scythe, as a prepara- 
tion of the surface for his deeper operations. 

Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for 
event, jingled and jingled the heavy gold 
watch-chain that depended from below his trim 
blue coat, whereof the buttons sparkled phos- 
phorescently in the feeble rays of the distant 
fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and 
clenched, seemed in his feeble way, to be 
squaring at existence for having come upon 
him so unexpectedly. 

" Dombey and Son." Those three words 
conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey's life. 
The earth was made for Dombey and Son to 
trade in, and the sun and moon were made 
to give them light. Rivers and seas were 
formed to float their ships ; rainbows gave 
them promise of fair weather; winds blew 
for or against their enterprises; stars and 
planets circled in their orbits, to preserve in- 
violate a system of which they were the cen- 
tre. Common abbreviations took new mean- 
ings in his eyes, and had sole reference to 

I02 



MRS. EDITH DOMBEY 



them. A. D. had no concern with anno 
Domini, but stood for anno Dombei — and Son. 
Donibey and Son. For references see Flor- 
ence Dombey. 

Mrs. Edith Dombey, widow of Colonel 
Granger. (See Dombey and Son and Car- 
ker.) 

Very handsome, very haughty, very wilful, 
who tossed her head and drooped her eyelids, 
as though, if there were anything in all the 
world worth looking into, save a mirror, it 
certainly was not the earth or sky. . . . 
It was a remarkable characteristic of this 
lady's beauty that it appeared to vaunt and 
assert itself without her aid, and against her 
will. She knew that she was beautiful: it 
was impossible that it could be otherwise: but 
she seemed with her own pride to defy her 
very self. 

Whether she held cheap, attractions that 
could only call forth admiration that was 
worthless to her, or- whether she designed to 
render them more precious to admirers by this 
usage of them, those to whom they were pre- 
cious seldom paused to consider. . . . 

" I was a woman — artful, designing, mer- 
cenary, laying snares for men — before I knew 
myself, or even understood the base and 
wretched aim of every new display I learnt. . 
103 



MRS. EDITH DOMBEY 



" Look at me, who have never known what 
it is to have an honest heart, and love. Look 
at me, taught to scheme and plot when chil- 
dren play ; and married in my youth — an old 
age of design — to one for whom I had no 
feeling but indifference. Look at me, whom 
he left a widow, dying before his inheritance 
descended to him — and tell me what has been 
my life for ten years since." 

" There is no slave in a market : there is no 
horse in a fair: so shown and offered and 
examined and paraded, as I have been, for ten 
shameful years. Is it not so? Have I been 
made the byword of all kinds of men? Have 
fools, have profligates, have boys, have 
dotards, dangled after me, and one by one re- 
jected me, and fallen off, because you were too 
plain with all your cunning: yes, and too true, 
with all those false pretences: until we have 
almost come to be notorious? The license of 
look and touch, have I submitted to it, in half 
the places of resort upon the map of Eng- 
land? Have I been hawked and vended here 
and there, until the last grain of self-respect is 
dead within me, and I loathe myself?" . . . 

" Who takes me, refuse that I am, and as 
I well deserve to be, shall take me, as this 
man does, with no art of mine put forth to 
lure him. He sees me at the auction, and he 
thinks it well to buy me. Let him ! When 
104 



FLORENCE DOMBEY 



he came to view me — perhaps to bid — he 
required to see the roll of my accomplish- 
ments. I gave it to him. When he would 
have me show one of them, to justify his pur- 
chase to his men, I require of him to say 
which he demands, and I exhibit it. I will 
do no more. He makes the purchase of his 
own will, and with his own sense of its worth, 
and the power of his money; and I hope it 
may never disappoint him. I have not vaunted 
and pressed the bargain." 
Dombeyand Son {for references see Flor- 
ence Dombey, Paul Dombey, and James 
Carker). 

Florence Dombey, the despised and neg- 
lected but loving and lovable daughter of Mr. 
Dombey. The indifference of her father to- 
wards her grows to hatred and at last he 
drives her out of his house. She marries 
Walter Gay, once a junior in Mr. Dombey's 
bank, who found her when she was lost in 
London as a little child. Subsequently her 
father becomes reconciled to her when he is 
stripped of all else and he passes his declining 
days with her and her children. 

So Florence lived in her wilderness of a 
home, within the circle of her innocent pur- 
suits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. 
She could go down to her father's rooms now, 
105 



PAUL DOMBEY 



and think of him, and suffer her loving heart 
humbly to approach him, without fear of re- 
pulse. She could look upon the objects that 
had surrounded him in his sorrow, and could 
nestle near his chair, and not dread the glance 
that she so well remembered. She could ren- 
der him such little tokens of her duty and 
service, as putting everything in order for him 
with her own hands, binding little nosegays 
for his table, changing them as one by one 
they withered and he did not come back, pre- 
paring something for him every day, and leav- 
ing some timid mark of her presence near his 
usual seat. To-day, it was a little painted 
stand for his watch; to-morrow, she would 
be afraid to leave it, and would substitute 
some other trifle of her making not so likely 
to attract his eye. Waking in the night, per- 
haps, she would tremble at the thought of his 
coming home and angrily rejecting it, and 
would hurry down with slippered feet and 
quickly beating heart, and bring it away. At 
another time, she would only lay her face upon 
his desk, and leave a kiss there, and a tear. 
Dombey and Son, ch. i, in, v, vi, vUi-xii, xiv, 
xvi, xviii, xix, xxii-xxiv, xxvii, xxx, 
xxxv-xxxvii, xl, xli, xliii-xlv, xlvii-l, Ivi, 
Ivii, lix, Ixi, Ixii. 

Paul Dombey, 'the son and heir of Mr. 
Dombey, on zvhom all his father's hopes are 
io6 



PAUL DOMBEY 



centred. His mother dies in giving him birth: 
the child is a weakling and is sent to Brighton 
in the care of Mrs. Pipchin. He then goes to 
Dr. Blimher"s School, where the forcing pro- 
cess of education only hastens the end and the 
lad is taken home to die. 

He was a pretty little fellow; though there 
was something wan and wistful in his small 
face, that gave occasion to many significant 
shakes of Mrs. Wickam's head, and many 
long-drawn inspirations of Mrs. Wickam's 
breath. His temper gave abundant promise 
of being imperious in after-life; and he had 
as hopeful an apprehension of his own im- 
portance, and the rightful subservience of all 
other things and persons to it, as heart could 
desire. He was childish and sportive enough 
at times, and not of a sullen disposition; but 
he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful 
way, at other times, of sitting brooding in his 
miniature arm-chair, when he looked (and 
talked) like one of those terrible little beings 
in the fairy tales, who, at a hundred and fifty 
or two hundred years of age, fantastically rep- 
resent the children for whom they have been 
substituted. He would frequently be stricken 
with this precocious mood upstairs in the 
nursery; and would sometimes lapse into it 
suddenly, exclaiming that he was tired: even 
while playing with Florence, or driving Miss 

I07 



AMY DORRIT 



Tox in single harness. But at no time did he 
fall into it so surely, as when, his little chair 
being carried down into his father's room, he 
sat there with him after dinner, by the fire. 
They were the strangest pair at such a time 
that ever firelight shone upon. Mr. Dombey 
so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze; his 
little image, with an old, old face, peering into 
the red perspective with the fixed and rapt at- 
tention of a sage. Mr. Dombey entertaining 
complicated worldly schemes and plans; the 
little image entertaining Heaven knows what 
wild fancies, half-formed thoughts, and wan- 
dering speculations. Mr. Dombey stiff with 
starch and arrogance; the little image by in- 
heritance, and in unconscious imitation. The 
two so very much alike, and yet so monstrously 
contrasted. 
Dombey and Son, ch. i-iii, v-viii, xiv, xvi. 

Amy Dorrit (Little Dorrit), daughter of 
William Dorrit, who becomes the wife of Ar- 
thur Clennam. She devoted herself to the 
support and protection of her father in his 
misfortune, bearing in her own heart his anx- 
ieties and the shame. She was called " the 
child of the Marshalsea," having been born in 
the prison, and was christened and married in 
the same church hard by. When fortune 
smiled upon the family her faithfulness was 
io8 



AMY DORRIT 



forgotten and she suffered much in conse- 
quence, but silently and bravely : — throughout 
her life like one of old she " went about doing 
good.'' 

Little Dorrit let herself out to do needle- 
work. At so much a day — or at so little — 
from eight to eight. Little Dorrit was to be 
hired. Punctual to the moment, Little Dorrit 
appeared; punctual to the moment. Little Dor- 
rit vanished. What became of Little Dorrit 
between the two eights, was a mystery. 

Another of the moral phenomena of Little 
Dorrit. Besides her consideration money, her 
daily contract included meals. She had an 
extraordinary repugnance to dining in com- 
pany; would never do so, if it were possible 
to escape. Would always plead that she had 
this bit of work to begin first, or that bit of 
work to finish first; and would, of a certainty, 
scheme and plan — not very cunningly, it 
would seem, for she deceived no one — to dine 
alone. Successful in this, happy in carrying 
off her plate anywhere, to make a table of 
her lap, or a box, or the ground, or even as 
was supposed, to stand on tip-toe, dining mod- 
erately at a mantel-shelf; the great anxiety of 
Little Dorrit's day was set at rest. 

It was not easy to make out Little Dorrit's 
face; she was so retiring, plied her needle in 
such removed corners, and started away so 
109 



AMY DORRIT 



scared if encountered on the stairs. But it 
seemed to be a pale transparent face, quick in 
expression, though not beautiful in feature, its 
soft hazel eyes excepted. A delicately bent 
head, a tiny form, a quick little pair of busy 
hands, and a shabby dress — it must needs 
have been very shabby to look at all so, being 
so neat — were Little Dorrit as she sat at 
work. . . . 

With no earthly friend to help her, or so 
much as to see her, but the one so strangely 
assorted; with no knowledge even of the 
common daily tone and habits of the common 
members of the free community who are not 
shut up in prisons; born and bred, in a social 
condition, false even with a reference to the 
falsest condition outside the walls; drinking 
from infancy of a well whose waters had their 
own peculiar stain, their own unwholesome 
and unnatural taste ; the Child of the Marshal- 
sea began her womanly life. 

No matter through what mistakes and dis- 
couragements, what ridicule (not unkindly 
meant, but deeply felt) of her youth and little 
figure, what humble consciousness of her own 
babyhood and want of strength, even in the 
matter of lifting and carrying; through how 
much weariness and hopelessness, and how 
many secret tears ; she trudged on, until recog- 
nised as useful, even indispensable. That time 
no 



AMY DORRIT 



came. She took the place of eldest of the 
three, in all things but precedence; was the 
head of the fallen family; and bore, in her 
own heart, its anxieties and shames. 

At thirteen, she could read and keep ac- 
counts — that is, could put down in words and 
figures how much the bare necessaries that 
they wanted would cost, and how much less 
they had to buy them with. She had been, by 
snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an even- 
ing school outside, and got her sister and 
brother sent to day-schools by desultory 
starts, during three or four years. There 
was no instruction for any of them at 
home ; but she knew well — no one better — 
that a man so broken as to be the Father of 
the Marshalsea, could be no father to his own 
children. ... At twenty-two, with a still 
surviving attachment to the one miserable yard 
and block of houses as her birthplace and 
home, she passed to and fro in it shrinkingly 
now, with a womanly consciousness that she 
was pointed out to every one. Since she had 
begun to work beyond the walls, she had found 
it necessary to conceal where she lived, and 
to come and go as secretly as she could, be- 
tween the free city and the iron gates, outside 
of which she had never slept in her life. Her 
original timidity had grown with this conceal- 
ment, and her light step and her little figure 



MR. FREDERICK DORRIT 

shunned the thronged streets while they passed 
along them. 

Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, 
she was innocent in all things else. Innocent, 
in the mist through which she saw her father, 
and the prison, and the turbid living river 
that flowed through it and flowed on. 
Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. Hi, v-ix, xii-xvi, xviii- 

XXV, xxvii, xxix,xxxi, xxxii, xxxv, xxxvi; 

Book II, ch. i-viii, xi, xiv, xv, xix, xxiv, 

xxvi, xxvii, xxix-xxxi, xxxiii, xxxiv. 

Mr. Frederick Dorrit, brother to Mr. Wil- 
liam Dorrit, Little Dorrit's uncle. 

There was a ruined uncle in the family 
group — ruined by his brother, the Father of 
the Marshalsea. . . . Naturally a retired 
and simple man, he had shown no particular 
sense of being ruined, at the time when that 
calamity fell upon him, further than that he 
left off washing himself when the shock was 
announced, and never took to that luxury any 
more. He had been a very indifferent musical 
amateur in his better days; and when he fell 
with his brother, resorted for support to play- 
ing a clarionet as dirty as himself in a small 
Theatre Orchestra. It was the theatre in 
which his niece became a dancer; he had been 
a fixture there a long time when she took her 
poor station in it ; and he accepted the task of 
serving as her escort and guardian, just as he 

112 



MR. FREDERICK DORRIT 

would have accepted an illness, a legacy, a 
feast, starvation — anything but soap. 

He stooped a good deal, and plodded along 
in a slow preoccupied manner, which made the 
bustling London thoroughfares no very safe 
resort for him. He was dirtily and meanly 
dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue, reach- 
ing to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, 
where it vanished in the pale ghost of a vel- 
vet collar. A piece of red cloth with which 
that phantom had been stiffened in its lifetime 
was now laid bare, and poked itself up, at the 
back of the old man's neck, into a confusion 
of grey hair and rusty stock and buckle which 
altogether nearly poked his hat off. A greasy 
hat it was, and a napless; impending over his 
eyes, cracked and crumpled at the brim, and 
with a wisp of pocket-handkerchief dangling 
out below it. His trousers were so long and 
loose, and his shoes so clumsy and large, that 
he shuffled like an elephant; though how 
much of this was gait and how much trailing 
cloth and leather, no one could have told. 
Under one arm he carried a limp and worn- 
out case, containing some wind instrument; 
in the same hand he had a pennyworth of 
snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown paper, 
from which he slowly comforted his poor old 
blue nose with a lengthened-out pinch. 
Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. vii-ix, xix, xx, xxvi; 

Book II, ch. i, iv, V, xix. 
113 



WILLIAM DORRIT 



William Dorrit, the Father of the Mar- 
shalsea, a prisoner for debt. After twenty- 
five years in prison he proves to he heir to a 
great fortune that has been unclaimed and ac- 
cumulating. He leaves the Marshalsea in 
great state, a rich man, hut he takes with him 
a failing intellect, developes a ridiculous 
pride and puts on lofty airs, allowing no one 
to recall the days of his poverty and disgrace. 
He declines slowly and dies in a palace in 
Rome, where he fancies he is again in the 
Marshalsea. 

He was, at that time, a very amiable and 
very helpless middle-aged gentleman, who was 
going out again directly. Necessarily, he was 
gomg out again directly, because the Marshal- 
sea lock never turned upon a debtor who was 
not. He brought in a portmanteau with him, 
which he doubted its being worth while to 
unpack; he was so perfectly clear — like all 
the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said 
— that he was going out again directly. 

He was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, 
though in an effeminate style; with a mild 
voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands — 
rings upon the fingers in those days — which 
nervously wandered to his trembling lip a hun- 
dred times, in the first half-hour of his ac- 
quaintance with the jail. His principal anx- 
iety was about his wife. . . . 
114 



« 



WILLIAM DORRIT 



The affairs of this debtor were perplexed 
by a partnership, of which he knew no more 
than that he had invested money in it; by 
legal matters of assignment and settlement, 
conveyance here and conveyance there, sus- 
picion of unlawful preference of creditors in 
this direction, and of mysterious spiriting away 
of property in that ; and as nobody on the face 
of the earth could be more incapable of ex- 
plaining any single item in the heap of con- 
fusion than the debtor himself, nothing com- 
prehensible could be made of his case. To 
question him in detail, and endeavour to recon- 
cile his answers; to closet him with account- 
ants and sharp practitioners, learned in the 
wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy; was only 
to put the case out at compound interest of in- 
comprehensibility. The irresolute fingers flut- 
tered more and more ineffectually about the 
trembling lip on every such occasion, aiid the 
sharpest practitioners gave him up as a hope- 
less job. . . . Crushed at first by his im- 
prisonment, he had soon found a dull relief in 
it. He was under lock and key; but the lock 
and key that kept him in, kept numbers of his 
troubles out. If he had been a man with 
strength of purpose to face those troubles and 
fight them, he might have broken the net that 
held him, or broken his heart; but being what 
he was, he languidly slipped into this smooth 
115 



WILLIAM DORRIT 



descent, and never more took one step up- 
ward. 

When he was relieved of the perplexed af- 
fairs that nothing would make plain, through 
having them returned upon his hands by a 
dozen agents in succession who could make 
neither beginning,, middle, nor end of them, 
or him, he found his miserable place of refuge 
a quieter refuge than it had been before. 
. . . Tradition afterwards handed down 
from generation to generation — a Marshalsea 
generation might be calculated as about three 
months — that the shabby old debtor with the 
soft manner and the white hair, was the 
Father of the Marshalsea. 

And he grew to be proud of the title. If 
any impostor had arisen to claim it, he would 
have shed tears in resentment of the attempt 
to deprive him of his rights. A disposition 
began to be perceived in him, to exaggerate 
the number of years he had been there; it 
was generally understood that you must de- 
duct a few from his account ; he was vain, the 
fleeting generations of debtors said. 

All newcomers were presented to him. He 
was punctilious in the exaction of this cere- 
mony. The wits would perform the office of 
introduction with overcharged pomp and po- 
liteness, but they could not easily overstep his 
sense of its gravity. He received them in his 
Ii6 



DANIEL DOYCE 



poor room (he disliked an introduction in the 
mere yard, as informal — a thing that might 
happen to anybody), with a kind of bowed- 
down beneficence. They were welcome to 
the Marshalsea, he would tell them. Yes, 
he was Father of the place. So the world 
was kind enough to call him; and so he was, 
if more than twenty years of residence gave 
him a claim to the title. It looked small at 
first, but there was very good company there 

— among a mixture — necessarily a mixture 

— and very good air. 

Little Dorrit, Book I ch. vi-ix, xviii, xix, xxii, 
xxiii, xxxi, xxxii, xxxv, xxxvi; Book II, 
ch. i-iii, v-vii, xii, xiii, xv-xix. 

Daniel Doyce, partner of Arthur Clennam. 
They lose their fortune in the great Merdle 
crash, but Doyce re-establishes himself. 

He was not much to look at, either in point 
of size or in point of dress; being merely a 
short, square, practical looking man, whose 
hair had turned grey, and in whose face and 
forehead there were deep lines of cogitation, 
which looked as though they were carved in 
hard wood. He was dressed in decent black, 
a little rusty, and had the appearance of a sa- 
gacious master in some handicraft. He had 
a spectacle-case in his hand, which he turned 
over and over while he were thus in question, 
117 



b 



DANIEL DOYCE 



with a certain free use of the thumb that is 
never seen but in a hand accustomed to tools. 

He is a public offender. What has he been 
guilty of? Murder, manslaughter, arson, for- 
gery, swindling, house-breaking, highway rob- 
bery, larceny, conspiracy, fraud? 

Not one of them. 

But he has been ingenious and he has been 
trying to turn his ingenuity to his country's 
service. That makes him a public offender 
directly, sir. 

This Doyce is a smith and engineer. He 
is not in a large way, but he is well known 
as a very ingenious man. A dozen years 
ago, he perfects an invention (involving a 
very curious secret process) of great impor- 
tance to his country and his fellow-creatures. 
I won't say how much money it cost him, or 
how many years of his life he had been about 
it, but he brought it to perfection a dozen 
years ago. He is the most exasperating man 
in the world ; he never complains ! 

He addresses himself to the Government. 
The moment he addresses himself to the Gov- 
ernment, he becomes a public offender ! He 
ceases to be an innocent citizen, and becomes 
a culprit. He is treated from that instant as 
a man who has done some infernal action. 
He is a man to be shirked, put off, brow- 
beaten, sneered at, handed over by this highly- 
ii8 



DANIEL DOYCE 



connected young or old gentleman, to that 
highly-connected young or old gentleman, and 
dodged back again ; he is a man with no rights 
in his own time, or his own property; a mere 
outlaw, whom it is justifiable to get rid of 
anyhow; a man to be worn out by all possible 
means. . . . 

He was the son of a north-country black- 
smith, and had originally been apprenticed by 
his widowed mother to a. lock-maker; he 
had " struck out a few little things " at the 
lock-maker's, which had led to his being re- 
leased from his indentures with a present, 
which present had enabled him to gratify his 
ardent wish to bind himself to a working en- 
gineer, under whom he had laboured hard, 
His time being out, he had " worked in the 
shop '" at weekly wages seven or eight years 
more; and had then betaken himself to the 
banks of the Clyde, where he had studied, and 
filed and hammered, and improved his knowl- 
edge, theoretical and practical, for six or 
seven years more. There he had had an offer 
to go to Lyons, which he had accepted; 
and from Lyons had been engaged to 
go to Germany, and in Germany had 
had an offer to go to St. Petersburg, and 
there had done very well indeed — never bet- 
ter. However, he had naturally felt a prefer- 
ence for his own country, and a wish to gain 
119 



LITTLE EM'LY 



distinction there, and to do whatever service 
he could do, there rather than elsewhere. 
And so he had come home. And so at home 
he had established himself in business, and 
had invented and executed, and worked his 
way on, until, after a dozen years of constant 
suit and service, he had been enrolled in the 
Great British Legion of Honour, the Legion 
of the Rebuffed of the Circumlocution Office, 
and had been decorated with the Great British 
Order of Merit, the Order of the Disorder of 
the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings. . . . 

A composed and unobtrusive self-sustain 
ment was noticeable in Daniel Doyce — a calm 
knowledge that what was true must remain 
true, in spite of all the Barnacles in the 
family ocean, and would be just the truth, and 
neither more nor less, when even that sea had 
run dry — which had a kind of greatness in 
it, though not of the official quality. 
Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. x, xii, xvi, xvii, 

xxiii, xxvi, xxviii, xxxiv,; Book II, ch, viii, 

xiii, xxii, xxvi, xxxiv. 

Little Em'ly, Mr. Peggotty's niece, and 
adopted daughter, and David Copperiield's first 
love. She was afterzvard engaged to her 
cousin Ham, hut Steerforth seduced, and took 
her abroad, zuhere he cast her off — offering 
her the hand of his rascally servant, Littimer. 
1 20 



LITTLE EM'LY 



She runs away from him, goes to England 
is found wandering in London, i'^f^'^J" 
her uncle and emigrates with hm to AustraUa 
Zere the rest of her Ufe is spent .« feace 
and good works. 

She was a little creature still in stature, 
though she was grown. But when she drew 
nearer and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, 
and her dimpled face looking brighter, and her , 
whole self prettier and gayer, a cunous feeing 
Tame over me that made me pretend not to 
know her, and pass by as if I were looking 
at something a long way off. I have done 
such a thing since in later life, or I am mis 

t3.kcri 

Little Em'ly didn't care a bit. She saw me 
well enough; but instead of turning round and 
calling after me, ran away laughing. This 
obliged me to run after her, and she ran so 
fast that we were very near the cottage before 
I caught her ... I was going to kiss 
her but she covered her cherry lips with her 
hands, and said she wasn't a baby now, and 
ran away, laughing more than ever, mto the 
house. She seemed to delight in teasing me, 
which was a change in her I wondered at very 

™ Little Em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; 
and by no one more than Mr. Peggotty himself, 
whom she could have coaxed into anything, by 

121 



LITTLE EM'LY 



only going and laying her cheek against his 
rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least, 
when I saw her do it ; and I held Mr. Peggotty 
to be thoroughly in the right. But she was 
so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had 
such a pleasant manner of being both sly and 
shy at once, that she captivated me more than 
ever. . . . 

Wild and full of childish whims as Em'ly 
was, she was more of a little woman than I 
had supposed. She seemed to have got a great 
distance away from me, in little more than a 
year. She liked me, but she laughed at me, 
and tormented me; and when I went to meet 
her, stole home another way, and was laugh- 
ing at the door when I came back disap- 
pointed. The best times were when she sat 
quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on 
the wooden step at her feet, reading to her. 
It seems to me, at this hour, that I have never 
seen such sunlight as on those bright April 
afternoons; that I have never seen such a 
sunny little figure as I used to see, sitting in 
the doorway of the old boat ; that I have never 
beheld such sky, such water, such glorified 
ships sailing away into golden air. 
David CopperReld, ch. Hi, vii, x, xvii, xxiii, 

XXX, I, Ivii, Ixiii.. 



122 



MR. FS AUNT 



Mr F's Aunt, an old lady who is a leg- 
acy left to Mrs. Flora Pinching by her deceased 
husband. 

An amazing little old woman, with a face 
like a staring wooden doll too cheap for ex- 
pression, and a stiff yellow wig perched un- 
evenly on the top of her head, as if the child 
who owned the doll had driven a tack through 
it anywhere, so that it only got fastened on 
Another remarkable thing in this little old 
woman was, that the same child seemed to 
have damaged her face in two or three places 
^With some blunt instrument in the nature ot 
a spoon; her countenance, and particularly 
the tip of her nose, presented the phenomena 
of several dints, generally answering to the 
bowl of that article. A further remarkable 
thing in this little old woman was, that she 
had no name but Mr. F's Aunt. • • • 

The major characteristics discoverable by 
the stranger in Mr. F's Aunt were extreme 
severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes in- 
terrupted by a propensity to offer remarks in 
a deep warning voice, which, being totally 
uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and 
traceable to no association of ideas con- 
founded and terrrified the mind. Mr. 1^ s 
Aunt may have thrown in these observations 
on some system of her own, and it may have 
been ingenious, or even subtle; but the key 
to it was wanted. . . • 
123 



FAGIN 



" There's mile-stones on the Dover road ! " 
With such mortal hostility towards the hu- 
man race did she discharge this missile, that 
Clennam was quite at a loss how to defend 
himself. . . . He could not but look at her 
with disconcertment, as she sat breathing bit- 
terness and scorn, and staring leagues away. 
Flora, however, received the remark as if it 
had been of a most apposite and agreeable na- 
ture; approvingly observing aloud that Mr. 
F's Aunt had a great deal of spirit. Stimu- 
lated either by this compliment, or by her 
burning indignation, that illustrious woman 
then added, " Let him meet it if he can ! " 
And, with a rigid movement of her stony 
reticule (an appendage of great size, and of a 
fossil appearance), indicated that Clennam 
was the unfortunate person at whom the chal- 
lenge was hurled. 

Little Dorrit, Bk. I, ch. xiii, xxiii, xxiv, xxxv. 
Book II, ch. ix, xxxiv. 

Fagin, a receiver of stolen goods and a 
trainer of thieves and pickpockets, whom he 
called his " apprentices." After a long career 
of crime he was sentenced to death for being 
concerned in a murder. 

A very old shrivelled Jew, whose villanous- 
looking and repulsive face was obscured by a 
quantity of matted red hair. He was dressed 
124 



FAGIN 



in a greasy flannel gown, with his throat bare ; 
and seemed to be dividing his attention be- 
tween a frying-pan and a clothes-horse, over 
which a great number of silk handkerchiefs 
were hanging. Several rough beds made of 
old sacks, were huddled side by side on the 
floor; and seated round the table were four or 
five boys^ none older than the Dodger, smoking 
long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with the 
air of middle aged men. These all crowded 
about their associate as he whispered a few 
words to the Jew; and then turned round and 
grinned at Oliver; as did the Jew himself, 
toasting-fork in hand. 

" This is him, Fagin," said Jack Dawkins ; 
" my friend Oliver Twist." 

The Jew grinned; and, making a low obei- 
sance to Oliver, took him by the hand, and 
hoped he should have the honour of his inti- 
mate acquaintance. Upon this, the young gen- 
tlemen with the pipes came round him, and 
shook both his hands very hard — especially 
the one in which he held his little bundle. 
One young gentleman was very anxious to 
hang up his cap for him; and another was so 
obliging as to put his hands in his pockets, in 
order that, as he was very tired, he might not 
have the trouble of emptying them, himself, 
when he went to bed. . . . 

It was late next morning when Oliver 
125 



FAGIN 



awoke, from a sound, long sleep. There was 
no other person in the room but the old Jew, 
who was boiling some coffee in a saucepan 
for breakfast, and whistling softly to himself 
as he stirred it round and round, with an iron 
spoon. He would stop every now and then to 
listen when there was the least noise below : 
and when he had satisfied himself, he would go 
on, whistling and stirring again as before. 
. . . When the breakfast was cleared away, 
the merry old gentleman and the two boys 
played at a very curious and uncommon game, 
which was performed in this way. The merry 
old gentleman, placing a snuff-box in one 
pocket of his trousers, a note-case in the other, 
and a watch in his waistcoat pocket, with a 
guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a 
mock diamond pin in his shirt: buttoned his 
coat tight round him, and putting his spec- 
tacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, 
trotted up and down the room with a stick, in 
imitation of the manner in which old gentle- 
men walk about the streets any hour in the 
day. Sometimes he stopped at the fire-place, 
and sometimes at the door, making believe 
that he was staring with all his might into 
shop-windows. At such times, he would look 
constantly round him, for fear of thieves, and 
keep slapping all his pockets in turn, to see 
that he hadn't lost anything, in such a funny 
126 



MR. FEEDER, B. A. 



and natural manner, that Oliver laughed till 
the tears ran down his face. All this time, 
the two boys followed him closely about: get- 
ting out of his sight, so nimbly, every time he 
turned round, that it was impossible to follow 
their motions. At last, the Dodger trod upon 
his toes, or ran upon his boot accidentally, 
while Charley Bates stumbled up against him 
behind; and in that one moment they took 
from him, with the most extraordinary rapid- 
ity, snuff-box, note-case, watch-guard, chain, 
shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief, even the spec- 
tacle-case. If the old gentleman felt a hand 
in any one of his pockets, he cried out where 
it was; and then the game began all over 
again. 
Oliver Twist, ch. viii, ix, xii, xiii, xv, xvi, xix, 

XX, xxv,xxxvi, xxxiv, xxxix, xlii-xlv, xlvii, 

Hi. 

Mr. Feeder, B. A., assistant to Dr. Blimher 
in his school at Brighton: he subsequently 
married his daughter Cornelia — and suc- 
ceeded to his ''high class expensive school.'* 

He was a kind of human barrel-organ, 
with a little list of tunes at which he was con- 
tinually working, over and over again, without 
any variation. He might have been fitted up 
with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early 
life, if his destiny had been favourable; but 
127 



MR. FEEDER, B. A. 



it had not been; and he had only one, with 
which, in a monotonous round, it was his occu- 
pation to bewilder the young ideas of Dr. 
Blimber's young gentlemen. The young gen- 
tlemen were prematurely full of carking anx- 
ieties. They knew no rest from the pursuit 
of stony-hearted verbs, savage noun-substan- 
tives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts 
of exercises that appeared to them in their 
dreams. Under the forcing system, a young 
gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in 
three weeks. He had all the cares of the 
world on his head in three months. He con- 
ceived bitter sentiments against his parents 
or guardians in four; he was an old misan- 
thrope, in five; envied Quintius Curtius that 
blessed refuge in the earth, in six; and at the 
end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at 
the conclusion, from which he never after- 
wards departed, that all the fancies of the 
poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere 
collection of words and grammar, and had no 
other meaning in the world. 

But he went on, blow, blow, blowing, in the 
Doctor's hothouse, all the time; and the Doc- 
tor's glory and reputation were great, when he 
took his wintry growth home to his relations 
and friends. 
Dombcy and Son, ch. Ix: 



128 



FLORA PINCHING 



Flora Finching, a good-hearted sentimen- 
tal widow of about forty. Daughter of Chris- 
topher Casby, formerly engaged to Arthur 
Clennam. The engagement was broken off 
and Arthur went to China. She talks dis- 
jointedly, and with the utmost volubility — 
using nothing but commas and very few of 
those, producing an effect on the listener which 
nearly takes away the breath. 

Clennam's eyes no sooner fell upon the sub- 
ject of his old passion, than it shivered and 
broke to pieces. 

Most men will be found sufficiently true to 
themselves to be true to an old idea. It is no 
proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the 
opposite, when the ideal will not bear close 
comparison with the reality, and the contrast is 
a fatal shock to it. Such was Clennam's case. 
In his youth he had ardently loved this woman, 
and had heaped upon her all the locked-up 
wealth of his affection and imagination. That 
wealth had been, in his desert home, like Rob- 
inson Crusoe's money; exchangeable with no 
one, lying idle in the dark to rust; until he 
poured it out for her. Ever since that mem- 
orable time, though he had, until the night of 
his arrival, as completely dismissed her from 
any association with his Present or Future 
as if she had been dead (which she might 
easily have been for anything he knew), he 
129 



FLORA PINCHING 



had kept the old fancy of the Past unchanged, 
in its old sacred place. And now, after all, the 
last of the Patriarchs coolly walked into the 
parlour, saying in effect, " Be good enough to 
throw it down and dance upon it. This is 
Flora." 

Flora, always tall, had grown to be very 
broad too, and short of breath; but that was 
not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had 
become a peony; but that was not much. 
Flora who had seemed enchanting in all she 
said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That 
was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and 
artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled 
and artless now. That was a fatal blow. . . 

Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid 
snatches for his ear, that there was a time and 
that the past was yawning gulf however and 
that a golden chain no longer bound him and 
that she revered the memory of the late Mr. 
F and that she should be at home to-morrow 
at half-past one and that the decrees of Fate 
were beyond recall and that she considered 
nothing so improbable as that he ever walked 
on the north-west side of Gray's-Inn Gardens 
at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon. He 
tried at parting to give his hand in frankness 
to the existing Flora — not the vanished Flora, 
or the Mermaid — but Flora wouldn't have 
it, couldn't have it, was wholly destitute of the 
130 



JEREMIAH FLINTWINCH 

power of separating herself and him from their 
bygone characters. 

Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. xiii, xxiii, xxiv, 
XXXV ; Book II, ch. ix, xvii, xxiii, xxxiv. 

Jeremiah Flintwinch, Mrs. Clennam's 
servant and afterwards partner. An unscru- 
pulous man, and a domestic tyrant, — His 
brother Ephraim was his ''double" and his 
confederate. 

An old man: bent and dried but with keen 
eyes. ... A short, bald old man, in a 
high-shouldered black coat and waistcoat, drab 
breeches, and long drab gaiters. He might, 
from his dress, have been either clerk or servr 
ant, and in fact had long been both. There 
was nothing about him in the way of decora- 
tion but a watch, which was lowered into the 
depths of its proper pocket by an old black 
ribbon, and had a tarnished copper key moored 
above it, to show where it was sunk. His head 
was awry, and he had a one-sided, crab-like 
way with him, as if his foundations had yielded 
at about the same time as those of the house, 
and he ought to have been propped up in a sim- 
ilar manner. . . . 

His neck was so twisted, that the knotted 
ends of his white cravat usually dangled under 
one ear; his natural acerbity and energy, al- 
ways contending with a second nature of ha- 
131 



MISS FLITE 



bitual repression, gave his features a swollen 
and suffused look; and altogether, he had a 
weird appearance of having hanged himself 
at one time or other, and of having gone 
about ever since, halter and all, exactly as 
some timely hand had cut him down. 
Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. iii-v, xv, xxix, xxx; 
Book ch. X, xvii, xxiii, xxvni, xxx, xxxi. 

Miss Flite, one of the suitors in the famous 
case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce and one of its 
victims. 

A little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet, 
who is always in court, from its sitting to its 
rising, and always expecting some incompre- 
hensible judgment to be given in her favour. 
Some say she really is, or was, a party to a 
suit; but no one knows for certain, because no 
one cares. She carries some small litter in a 
reticule which she calls her documents ; princi- 
pally consisting of paper matches and dry lav- 
ender. . . . 

She lived at the top of the house, in a pretty 
large room, from which she had a glimpse of 
the roof of Lincoln's Inn Hall. This seemed 
to have been her principal inducement, origi- 
nally, for taking up her residence there. She 
could look at it, she said, in the night: espe- 
cially in the moonshine. Her room was clean, 
but very, very bare. I noticed the scantiest 
132 



MISS FLITE 



necessaries in the way of furniture ; a few old 
prints from books, of Chancellors and barris- 
ters, waf ered against the wall ; and some half- 
dozen reticules and work-bags, "containing 
documents," as she informed us. There were 
neither coals nor ashes in the grate, and I 
saw no articles of clothing anywhere, nor any 
kind of food. Upon a shelf in an open cup- 
board were a plate or two, a cup or two, and so 
forth; but all dry and empty. There was a 
more affecting meaning in her pinched appear- 
ance, I thought as I looked round, than I had 
understood before. 

" Extremely honoured, I am sure," said our 
poor hostess, with the greatest suavity, "by 
this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And 
very much indebted for the omen. It is a 
retired situation. Considering. I am limited 
as to situation. In consequence of the neces- 
sity of attending on the Chancellor. I have 
lived here many years. I pass my days m 
court; my evenings and my nights here. I 
find the nights long, for I sleep but little, and 
think much. That is, of course, unavoid- 
able ; being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot 
offer chocolate. I expect a judgment shortly, 
and shall then place my establishment on a su- 
perior footing. At present, I don't mind con- 
fessing to the wards in Jarndyce (in strict 
confidence), that I sometimes find it difficult 
133 



SAIRY GAMP 



to keep up a genteel appearance. I have felt 
the cold here. I have felt something sharper 
than cold. It matters very little. Pray ex- 
cuse the introduction of such mean topics." 

She partly drew aside the curtain of the 
long low garret-window, and called our atten- 
tion to a number of bird-cages hanging there : 
some, containing several birds. There were 
larks, linnets, and goldfinches — I should think 
at least twenty. 

" I began to keep the little creatures," she 
said, " with an object that the wards will 
readily comprehend. With the intention of 
restoring them to liberty. When my judgment 
should be given. Ye-es ! They die in prison, 
though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so 
short in comparison with Chancery proceed- 
ings, that, one by one, the whole collection 
has died over and over again. I doubt, do you 
know, whether one of these, though they are 
all young, will live to be free ! Ve-ry morti- 
fying, is it not?" 
Bleak House, ch. Hi, v, xi, xiv, xxxiii, xxxv, 

xlvi, xlvii, I, Ix, Ixv. 

Sairy Gamp, a professional nurse, who 
constantly quotes or refers to a purely ficti- 
tious person, Mrs. Harris, as an authority for 
her own fancies and fabrications. ''Mrs. 
Harris," I says, "leave the bottle on the chim- 
134 



t 



SAIRY GAMP 



ley-piece, and don't ask me to take none, but 
let me put my lips to it when I am so dis- 
poged, and then I will do what I am engaged 
to do, according to the best of my ability " — 
was her way of intimating how she wished to 
be treated by her patrons with regard to her 
supply of spirituous liquor. 

She was a fat old woman, this. Mrs. Gamp, 
with a husky voice and a moist eye, which she 
had a remarkable power of turning up, and 
only showing the white of. Having very little 
neck, it cost her some trouble to look over 
herself, if one may say so, at those to whom 
she talked. She -wore a very rusty black 
gown, rather the worse for snuff, and a shawl 
and bonnet to correspond. In these dilapi- 
dated articles of dress she had, on principle, 
arrayed herself, time out of mind, on such 
occasions as the present; for this at once ex- 
pressed a decent amount of veneration for the 
deceased, and invited the next of kin to pre- 
sent her with a fresher suit of weeds: an 
appeal so frequently successful, that the very 
fetch and ghost of Mrs. Gamp, bonnet and all, 
might be seen hanging up, any hour in the 
day, in at least a dozen of the second-hand 
clothes shops about Holborn. The face of 
Mrs. Gamp — the nose in particular — was 
somewhat red and swollen, and it was difficult 
to enjoy her society without becoming con- 
135 



JOE GARGERY 



scious of a smell of spirits. Like most per- 
sons who have attained to great eminence in 
their profession, she took to hers very kindly; 
insomuch, that setting aside her natural pre- 
dilections as a woman, she went to a lying-in 
or a laying-out with equal zest and relish. 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xix, xxv, xxvi, xxix, 
xl, xlvi, xlix, li, liii. 

Joe Gargery, the blacksmith who married 
Pip's sister. She harshly treated the boy and 
Joe did as much as he dared to shield and be- 
friend him, making him quite a companion. 
After his wife dies he marries Biddy, a strong 
contrast to his termagant of a first wife: she 
makes his life happy and Joe lives for many 
years, " doing his duty with a strong hand, a 
quiet tongue and a gentle heart." 

Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen 
hair on each side of his smooth face, and with 
eyes of such a very undecided blue that they 
seemed to have somehow got mixed with their 
own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, 
sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fel- 
low — a sort of Hercules in strength, and also 
in weakness. . . . 

His character is well portrayed in his own 
ivords : 

Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so 
many partings welded together, as I may say, 
136 



JOE GARGERY 



and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a white- 
smith, and one's a goldsmith, and one s a cop- 
persmith. Diwisions among such must come, 
and must be met as they come. If there s 
been any fault at all to-day, it's mme You 
and me is not two figures to be together m 
London; nor yet anywheres else but what is 
private, and beknown, and understood among 
friends. It ain't that I am proud, but that 1 
want to be right, as you shall never see me no 
more in these clothes. I'm wrong m these 
clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge the 
kitchen, or off th' meshes You wont find 
half so much fault in me if you think of me 
in my forge dress, with my hammer in my 
hand, or even my pipe. You wont find hal 
so much fault in me if, supposing as you 
should ever wish to see me, you come and put 
vour head in at the forge window and see Joe 
Ihe blacksmith, there, at the old anvil m the 
old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. 
I'm awful dull, but I hope I've beat out some- 
thing nigh the rights of this at ast. And so 
God blefs you, dear old Pip, old chap, God 
bless you!" 

Great Expectations, ch. U-mi, «>, *, xh-xx, 
xvii, XXXV, hiii-lix. 



137 



MRS. JOE GARGERY 



Mrs. Joe Gargery — the shrewish zvife of 
Joe Gargery — Pip's sister. 

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than 
twenty years older than I, and had established 
a great reputation with herself and the neigh- 
bours because she had brought me up " by 
hand." Having at that time to find out for 
myself what the expression meant, and know- 
ing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to 
be much in the habit of laying it upon her 
husband as well as upon me, I supposed that 
Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by 
hand. 

She was not a good-looking woman, my sis- 
ter; and I had a general impression that she 
must have made Joe Gargery marry her "by 
hand." . . . 

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and 
eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin, 
that I sometimes used to wonder whether it 
was possible she washed herself with a nut- 
meg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and 
bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, 
fastened over her figure behind with two 
loops, and having a square impregnable bib 
in front that was stuck full of pins and 
needles. She made it a powerful merit in 
herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, 
that she wore this apron so much. Though I 
really see no reason why she should have 
138 



GASHFORD 



worn it at all; or why, if she did wear it at 
all, she should not have taken it off every 
day of her life. . . . 

She had been in one of her bad states — 
though they had got better of late, rather 
than worse — for four days, when she came 
out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, 
and said quite plainly, ' Joe.' As she had 
never said any word for a long while, I ran 
and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. 
She made signs to me that she wanted him to 
sit down close to her, and wanted me to put 
her arms round his neck. So I put them 
round his neck, and she laid her head down 
on his shoulder quite content and satisfied. 
And so she presently said ' Joe * again, and 
once ' Pardon,* and once ' Pip.* And so she 
never lifted her head up any more, and it was 
just an hour later when we laid it down on 
her own bed, because we found she was gone. 
Great Expectations, ch. ii, iv-vii, ix, x, xii- 
^ xviii, xxiv, xxv. 

Gashford^ the fawning unprincipled sec- 
retary of Lord George Gordon, whom he of 
course deserted in his misfortune. He sold 
his master's secrets as long as he could, be- 
came a government spy — and poisoned him- 
self in the end, dying obscurely and unknown, 
save for the entries in the pocketbook found 
upon him. 

139 



GASHFORD 



Gashford, the secretary, was tall, angularly 
made, high-shouldered, bony, and ungraceful. 
His dress, in imitation of his superior, was 
demure and staid in the extreme; his manner, 
formal and constrained. This gentleman had 
an overhanging brow, great hands and feet 
and ears, and a pair of eyes that seemed to 
have made an unnatural retreat into his head, 
and to have dug themselves a cave to hide in. 
His manner was smooth and humble, but very 
sly and slinking. He wore the aspect of a 
man who was always lying in wait for some- 
thing that wouldn't come to pass; but he 
looked patient — very patient — and fawned 
like a spaniel dog. Even now, while he 
warmed and rubbed his hands before the 
blaze, he had the air of one who only pre- 
sumed to enjoy it in his degree as a com- 
moner; and though he knew his lord was not 
regarding him, he looked into his face from 
time to time, and, with a meek and deferen- 
tial manner, smiled as if for practice. . . . 

This man, who in his boyhood was a thief, 
and has been from that time to this, a servile, 
false, and truckling knave: this man, who has 
crawled and crept through life, wounding the 
hands he licked, and biting those he fawned 
upon: this sycophant, who' never knew what 
honour, truth, or courage meant; who robbed 
his benefactor's daughter of her virtue, and 
140 



MRS. GENERAL 



married her to break her heart, and did it, 
with stripes and cruelty: this creature, who 
has whined at kitchen windows for the broken 
food, and begged for halfpence at our chapel 
doors: this apostle of the faith, whose tender 
conscience cannot bear the altars where his 
vicious life was publicly denounced ! 
Barnahy Rudge, ch. xxxv-xxxviii, xliii, xliv, 
xlviii-l, Hi, Hit, Ixxi, Ixxii. 

Mrs. General, the daughter of a clerical 
dignitary in a cathedral town, where she had 
led the fashion until near forty-five — when 
she married a staff commissariat officer of 
sixty. On his death she was engaged by Mr. 
Dorrit to "form the mind and manners" of 
his daughters. 

In person, Mrs. General, including her 
skirts which had much to do with it, was of 
a dignified and imposing appearance; ample, 
rustling, gravely voluminous; always upright 
behind the proprieties. She might have been 
taken — had been taken — to the top of the 
Alps and the bottom of Herculaneum, without 
disarranging a fold of her dress, or displacing 
a pin. If her countenance and hair had 
rather a floury appearance, as though from 
living in some transcendently genteel Mill, it 
was rather because she was a chalky creation 
altogether, than because she mended her com- 
141 



MRS. GENERAL 



plexion with violet powder, or had turned 
grey. If her eyes had no expression, it was 
probably because they had nothing to express. 
If she had few wrinkles, it was because her 
mind had never traced its name or any other 
inscription on her face. A cool, waxy, blown- 
out woman, who had never lighted well. 

Mrs. General had no opinions. Her way 
of forming a mind was to prevent it from 
forming opinions. She had a little circular 
set of mental grooves or rails, on which she 
started little trains of other people's opinons, 
which never overtook one another, and never 
got anywhere. Even her propriety could not 
dispute that there was impropriety in the 
world; but Mrs. General's way of getting rid 
of it was to put it out of sight, and make be- 
lieve that there was no such thing. This was 
another of her ways of forming a mind — to 
cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, 
lock them up, and say they had no existence. 
It was the easiest way, and, beyond all com- 
parison, the properest. 

Mrs. General was not to be told of anything 
shocking. Accidents, miseries, and offences, 
were never to be mentioned before her. Pas- 
sion was to go to sleep in the presence of 
Mrs. General, and blood was to change to 
milk and water. The little that was left in 
the world, when all these deductions were 
142 



SOLOMON GILLS 



made, it was Mrs. General's province to var- 
nish . In that formation process of hers, she 
dipped the smallest brushes into the largest 
of pots, and varnished the surface of every 
object that came under consideraton. The 
more cracked it was, the more Mrs. General 
varnished it. 
Little Dorrit, Book II, ch. i-v, vii, xi, xv, xix. 

Solomon Gills, a seller of nautical instru- 
ments, the uncle of Walter Gay and friend 
of Captain Cuttle, whom he leaves in charge 
when he goes abroad to find his nephew, 
whose ship is reported to have been lost at 
sea. 

To say nothing of his Welsh wig, which 
was as plain and stubborn a Welsh wig as 
ever was worn, and in which he looked like 
anything but a Rover, he was a slow, quiet- 
spoken, thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as 
red as if they had been small suns looking at 
you through a fog; and a newly-awakened 
manner, such as he might have acquired by 
having stared for three or four days succes- 
sively through every optical instrument in his 
shop, and suddenly come back to the world 
again, to find it green. The only change ever 
known in his outward man, was from a com- 
plete suit of coffee-colour cut very square, 
and ornamented with glaring buttons, to the 
143 



LORD GEORGE GORDON 



same suit of coffee-colour minus the inexpres- 
sibles, which were then of a pale nankeen. 
He wore a very precise shirt-frill, and carried 
a pair of first-rate spectacles on his forehead, 
and a tremendous chronometer in his fob, 
rather than doubt which precious possession, 
he would have believed in a conspiracy 
against it on the part of all the clocks and 
watches in the City, and even of the very sun 
itself. Such as he was, such he had been 
in the shop and parlour behind the little mid- 
shipman, for years upon years: going regu- 
larly aloft to bed every night in a howling 
garret remote from the lodgers, where, when 
gentlemen of England who lived below at ease 
had little or no idea of the state of the 
weather, it often blew great guns. 
Dombey and Son, ch. iv, vi, ix, x, xv, xvii, 
xix, xxii, xxiii, xxv, Ivi, Ivii, Ixiii. 

Lord George Gordon, the leader of the " no 
popery riots in 1780 — the result of a bill in 
Parliament relieving Roman Catholics of 
certain disabilities. Many Roman Catholic 
Churches, Newgate Prison, the house of Lord 
Chief Justice MansHeld and a number of pri- 
vate dwellings were destroyed. He was ar- 
rested, charged with high treason and com- 
mitted to the tower but was acquitted. After 
committing various political offences in Eng- 
144 



LORD GEORGE GORDON 



land and abroad he was imprisoned in Newgate 
for nearly six yearrs. He then embraced the 
Jewish faith — devoted himself to that, and 
to painting, and died in prison in 1793, zvhen 
only 43 years old. Dickens's descriptions of 
the man and of the riots are generally re- 
garded as historically accurate. 

He was about the middle height, of a 
slender make, and sallow complexion, with an 
aquiline nose, and long hair of a reddish 
brown, combed perfectly straight and smooth 
about his ears, and slightly powdered, but 
without the faintest vestige of a curl. He 
was attired, under his great coat, in a full 
suit of black, quite free from any ornament, 
and of the most precise and sober cut. The 
gravity of his dress, together with a certam 
lankness of cheek and stiffness of deportment, 
added nearly ten years to his age, but his fig- 
ure was that of one not yet past thirty. . . 
His very bright large eye betrayed a rest- 
lessness of thought and purpose, singularly at 
varience with the studied composure and so- 
briety of his mien, and with his quaint and sad 
apparel. It had nothing harsh or crude in its 
expression; neither had his face, which was 
thin and mild, and wore an air of melancholy; 
but it was suggestive of an indefinable uneasi- 
ness, which infected those who looked upon 
him,' and filled them with a kind of pity for 
145 



LORD GEORGE GORDON 



the man: though why it did so, they would 
have had some trouble to explain. . . . 

Sitting bolt upright upon his bony steed, 
with his long, straight hair dangling about his 
face and fluttering in the wind; his limbs 
all angular and rigid, his elbows stuck out on 
either side ungracefully, and his whole frame 
j(>ggecl and shaken at every motion of his 
horse's feet; a more grotesque or more un- 
gainly figure can hardly be conceived. In lieu 
of whip, he carried in his hand a great gold- 
headed cane, as large as any footman carries 
in these days; and his various modes of hold- 
ing this unwieldy weapon — now upright be- 
fore his face like the sabre of a horse-soldier, 
now over his shoulder like a musket, now be- 
tween his finger and thumb, but always in 
some uncouth and awkward fashion — con- 
tributed in no small degree to the absurdity of 
his appearance. Stiff, lank, and solemn, 
dressed in an unusual manner, and ostenta- 
tiously exhibiting — whether by design or ac- 
cident — all his peculiarities of carriage, ges- 
ture, and conduct ; all the qualities, natural and 
artificial, in which he differed from other men ; 
he might have moved the sternest looker-on to 
laughter, and fully provoked the smiles and 
whispered jests that greeted his departure. . . 

This lord was sincere in his violence and in 
his wavering. A nature prone to false en- 
146 



THOMAS GRADGRIND 



thusiasm, and the vanity of being a leader, 
were the worst qualities apparrent in his com- 
position. All the rest was weakness — sheer 
weakness; and it is the unhappy lot of 
thoroughly weak men, that their very sympa- 
thies, affections, confidences — all the qual- 
ities which in better constituted minds are 
virtues — dwindle into foibles or turn into 
downright vices. 

Barnahy Rudge, ch. xxxv-xxxvii, xliii, xlviii-l, 
Iviij Ixxiii, Ixxxii. 

Thomas Gradgrind, a retired wholesale 
hardware merchant. The wasted lives of his 
own children showed the error of his views. 

Thomas Gradgrind, sir. A man of realities. 
A man of facts and calculations. A man who 
proceeds upon the principle that two and two 
are four, and nothing over, and who is not to 
be talked into allowing for anything over. 
Thomas Gradgind, sir — peremptorily Thomas 
— Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a 
pair of scales, and the multiplication table 
always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and 
measure any parcel of human nature, and tell 
you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere 
question of figures, a case of simple arith- 
metic. You might hope to get some other 
nonsensical belief into the head of George 
Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John 
147 



THOMAS GRADGRIND 



Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all suppo- 
sitious, non-existent persons), but into the 
head of Thomas Gradgrind — no, sir ! 

" Now what I want is Facts ! Teach these 
boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone 
are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and 
root out everything else. You can only form 
the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: 
nothing else will ever be of service to them. 
This is the principle on which I bring up my 
own children, and this is the principle on 
which I bring up these children. Stick to 
Facts, sir ! " . . . 

The emphasis was helped by the speaker's 
square wall of a forehead, which had his eye- 
brows for its base, while his eyes found com- 
modious cellarage in two dark caves, over- 
shadowed by the wall. The emphasis was 
helped by the speaker's mouth, which was 
wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was 
helped by the speaker's voice, which was in- 
flexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis 
was helped by the speaker's hair, which bris- 
tled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation 
of firs to keep the wind from its shining sur- 
face, all covered with knobs, like the crust 
of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely 
warehouse-room for the hard facts stored 
inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, 
square coat, square legs, square shoulders, — 
148 



MARY GRAHAM 



nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him 
by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, 
Hke a stubborn fact, as it was, — all helped 
the emphasis. . . . 

He was an affectionate father, after his 
manner; but he would probably have de- 
scribed himself as " an eminently practical " 
father. He had a particular pride in the 
phrase eminently practical, which was con- 
sidered to have a special application to him. 
Whatsoever the public meeting held in Coke- 
town, and whatsoever the subject of such 
meeting, some Coketowner was sure to seize 
the occasion of alluding to his eminently 
practical friend Gradgrind. 
Hard Times, Book I, ch. iv, xiv-xvi; Book 

II, ch. i-iii, vii, ix, xi, xU; Book III, ch. 

i-ix. 

Mary Graham, old Martin Chuzzlewit's 
companion, betrothed to young Martin, 
against the old man's wishes.. .But they are 
finally married. 

She was very young; apparently not more 
than seventeen ; timid and shrinking in her 
manner, and yet with a greater share of self- 
possession and control over her emotions than 
usually belongs to a far more advanced period 
of female life. She was short in stature; and 
her figure was slight as became her years; 
149 



MARY GRAHAM 



but all the charm of youth and womanhood 
set it off, and clustered on her gentle brow. 
. . , Her attire was that of a lady, but ex- 
tremely plain; and in her manner there was 
an indefinable something which appeared to 
be in kindred with her scrupulously unpre- 
tending dress. . . . 

Had she been of the common metal of love- 
worn young ladies, she would have told him 
that she knew she had become a perfect 
fright; or that she had wasted away with 
weeping and anxiety; or that she was dwin- 
dling gently into an early grave; or that her 
mental sufferings were unspeakable; or 
would either by tears or words, or a mixture 
of both, have furnished him with some other 
information to that effect, and made him as 
miserable as possible. But she had been 
reared up in a sterner school than the minds 
of most young girls are formed in; she had 
had her nature strengthened by the hands of 
hard endurance and necessity; had come out 
from her young trials constant, self-denying, 
earnest, and devoted; had acquired in her 
maidenhood — whether happily in the end, for 
herself or him, is foreign to our present pur- 
pose to inquire — something of that nobler 
quality of gentle hearts which is developed 
often by the sorrows and struggles of ma- 
tronly years, but often by their lessons only. 
150 



ARTHUR GRIDE 



Unspoiled, unpampered in her joys or griefs; 
with frank, and full, and deep affection for 
the object of her early love; she saw in him 
one who for her sake was an outcast from his 
home and fortune^ and she had no more idea 
of bestowing that love upon him in other than 
cheerful and sustaining words, full of high 
hope and grateful trustfulness, than she had 
of being unworthy of it, in her lightest 
thought or deed, for any base temptation that 
the world could offer. 

Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. Hi, v, vi, xxiv, xxx, 
xxxi, xxxiii, xliii. Hi, liii. 

Arthur Gride, the old miser who was as- 
sociated with Ralph Nickleby in his business 
of extortion, and who was on the point of 
marrying Madeline Bray, when her father 
died, and Nicholas took her away and placed 
her in charge of the Cheeryble Brothers. 

He was a little old man, of about seventy 
or seventy-five years of age, of a very lean 
figure, much bent, and slightly twisted. He 
wore a grey coat with a very narrow collar, 
an old-fashioned waistcoat of ribbed black 
silk, and such scanty trousers as displayed 
his shrunken spindle-shanks in their full ugli- 
ness. The only articles of display or orna- 
ment in his dress, were a steel watch-chain to 
which were attached some large gold seals ; 
151 



ARTHUR GRIDE 



and a black ribbon into which, in compliance 
with an old fashion scarcely ever observed in 
these days, his grey hair was gathered behind. 
His nose and chin were sharp and prominent, 
his jaws had fallen inwards from loss of teeth, 
his face was shrivelled and yellow, save where 
the cheeks were streaked with the colour of 
a dry winter apple ; and where his beard had 
been, there lingered yet a few grey tufts" which 
seemed, like the ragged eyebrows, to denote 
the badness of the soil from which they 
sprang. The whole air and attitude of the 
form, was one of stealthy cat-like obsequious- 
ness ; the whole expression of the face was 
concentrated in a wrinkled leer, compounded 
of cunning, lecherousness, slyness, and ava- 
rice. 

Such was old Arthur Gride, in whose face 
there was not a wrinkle, in whose dress there 
was not one spare fold or plait, but expressed 
the most covetous and griping penury, and 
sufficiently indicated his belonging to that 
class of which Ralph Nickleby was a member. 
Such was old Arthur Gride, as he sat in a 
low chair looking up into the face of Ralph 
Nickleby, who, lounging upon the tall office 
stool with his arms upon his knees, looked 
down into his. 
Nicholas Nickleby, ch. xlvii, li, liii, liv, Ivi, 

lix, Ixv. 



MR. GRIMWIG 



Mr. Grimvvig, a friend of Mr. Brownlow, 
the gentleman who befriended and adopted 
Oliver Twist — irrascihle, hut warm-hearted, 
who would not he convinced of the innocence 
of Oliver Twist. He afterwards hecame his 
friend, though he contended always he was 
right hecause " Oliver did not come hack after 
all." 

A stout old gentleman, rather lame in one 
leg, who was dressed in a blue coat, striped 
waistcoat, nankeen breeches and gaiters, and 
a broad-brimmed white hat, with the sides 
tinned up with green. A very small-plaited 
shirt frill stuck out from his waist-coat; and 
a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing 
but a key at the end, dangled loosely below it. 
The ends of his white neckerchief were 
twisted into a ball about the size of an or- 
ange ; the variety of shapes into which his 
countenance was twisted defy description. 
He had a manner of screwing hii head on 
one side when he spoke: and of looking out 
of the corners of his eyes at the same time: 
which irresistibly reminded the beholder of 
a parrot. In this attitude, he fixed himself, 
the moment he made his appearance; and, 
holding out a piece of orange-peel at arm's 
length, exclaimed in a growling, discontented 
voice, 

" Look here ! do you see this ? Isn't it a 
153 



MRS. GUMMIDGE 



most wonderful and extraordinary thing that 
I can't call at a man's house but I find a piece 
of this poor surgeon's-friend on the staircase? 
I've been lamed with orange-peel once, and I 
know orange-peel will be my death at last. 
It will^ Sir; orange-peel will be my death or 
I'll be content to eat my own head, Sir ! " 

This was the handsome offer with which 
Mr. Grimwig backed and confirmed nearly 
every assertion that he made; and it was the 
more singular in his case, because, even ad- 
mitting for the sake of argument, the possi- 
bility of scientific improvements being ever 
brought to that pass which will enable a 
gentleman to eat his own head in the event of 
his being so disposed; Mr. Grimwig's head 
was such a particularly large one, that the 
most sanguine man alive could hardly enter- 
tain a hope of being able to get through it 
at a sitting — to put entirely out of the ques- 
tion, a very thick coating of powder. 

Oliver Twist, ch. xiv, xvii, xli, U, liii. 

Mrs. Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty's partner's 
widow. He gives her a home ,and though she 
does not brighten his fireside when all goes 
well, she is a great help in time of trouble. 
She finally emigrates with Mr. Peggotty and 
Little Em'ly. 

154 



MRS. GUMMIDGE 



Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself 
so agreeable as she might have been expected 
to do under the circumstances of her resi- 
dence with Mr, Peggotty. Mrs Gummidge's 
was rather a fretful disposition and she whim- 
pered more sometimes than was comfortable 
for other parties in so small an establishment. 
I was very sorry for her; but there were mo- 
ments when it would have been more agree- 
able, I thought, if Mrs. Gummidge had had a 
convenient apartment of her own to retire to, 
and had stopped there until her spirits re- 
vived. 

Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public- 
house called The Willing Mind. I discovered 
this, by his being out on the second or third 
evening of our visit, and by Mrs. Gummidge's 
looking up at the Dutch clock, between eight 
and nine, and saying he was there, and that, 
what was more, she had known in the morn- 
ing he would go there. 

Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all 
day, and had burst into tears in the forenoon, 
when the fire smoked. "I am a lone lorn 
creeturV' were Mrs. Gummidge's words, 
when that unpleasant occurrence took place,' 
" and everythink goes contrairy with me." . . 

It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts 
of wind. Mrs. Gummidge's peculiar corner 
of the fireside seemed to me to be the warm- 
155 



MISS HAVISHAM 



est and snuggest in the place, as her chair 
was certainly the easiest, but it didn't suit her 
that day at all. She was constantly complain- 
ing of the cold, and of its occasioning a visi- 
tation in her back which she called " the 
creeps." At last she shed tears on that sub- 
ject, and said again that she was " a lone lorn 
creetur' and everythink went contrairy with 
her." 

" It is certainly very cold," said Peggotty. 
" Everybody must feel it so." 

" I feel it more than other people," said 
Mrs. Gummidge. 
David Copperiield, ch. Hi, vii, xxi, xxii, xxxi, 

xxxH, xl, li, Ivii, Ixiii. 

Miss Havisham, the beautiful heiress who 
was heartlessly robbed and deceived by the 
convict Compeyson. She adopted a beautiful 
orphan girl, Estella, educating her to steel her 
heart against all tenderness but to lead men 
on to love her and break their hearts. Estella 
suffered deeply but in the end allows her af- 
fections to have proper play. 

In an arm chair, with an elbow resting on 
the table and her head leaning on that hand, 
sat the -strangest lady I have ever seen, or 
shall ever see. 

She was dressed in rich materials — satins, 
and lace, and silks — all of white. Her shoes 
156 



MISS HAVISHAM 



were white. And she had a long white veil 
dependent from her hair, and she had bridal 
flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. 
Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and 
on her hands, and some other jewels lay 
sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid 
than the dress she wore, and half-packed 
trunks, were scattered about. She had not 
quite finished dressing, for she had but one 
shoe on — the other was on the table near her 
hand — her veil was but half-arranged, her 
watch and chain were not put on, and some 
lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets 
and with her handkerchief and gloves, and 
some flowers, and a Prayer-book, all con- 
fusedly heaped about the looking-glass. 

It was not in the first few moments that I 
saw all these things, though I saw more of 
them in the first moments than might be sup- 
posed. But, I saw that everything within my 
view which ought to be white, had been white 
long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was 
faded and yellow. I saw that the bride with- 
in the bridal dress had withered like the dress, 
and like the flowers, and had no brightness 
left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I 
saw that the dress had been put upon the 
rounded figure of a young woman, and that 
the figure upon which it now hung loose, had 
shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been 
157 



URIAH KEEP 



taken to see some ghastly waxwork at the 
Fair, representing I know not what impossible 
personage lying in state. Once, I had been 
taken to one of our old marsh churches to see 
a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that 
had been dug out of a vault under the church 
pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton 
seemed to have dark eyes that moved and 
looked at me. 

Great Expectations, ch. viii, ix, xi-xiv, xix, 
xxii, xxix, xxxviii, xliv, xlix, IvU. 

Uriah Heep, a lawyer's clerk in the office 
of Mr. WicMeld. By a series of fraudulent 
machinations, he becomes Mr. Wickfield's 
partner, robbing him and his clients, until ex- 
posed by Mr. Micawber. He is last seen in 
solitary confinement in Mr. Creakle's Model 
Prison, where he is under sentence for life 
for robbing the Bank of England. 

I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small 
window on the ground floor (in a little round 
tower that formed one side of the house), 
and quickly disappear. The low arched door 
then opened and the face came out. It was 
quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the 
window, though in the grain of it there was 
that tinge of red which is sometimes to be ob- 
served in the skins of red-haired people. It 
belonged to a red-haired person — a youth 
158 



URIAH HEEP 



of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much 
older — whose hair was cropped as close as 
the closest stubble; who had hardily any eye- 
brows, and no eyelashes', and eyes of a* red- 
brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I 
remember wondering how he went to sleep. 
He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in 
decent black, with a white wisp of a neck- 
cloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a 
long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly 
attracted my attention, as he stood at the 
pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and 
looking up at us in the chaise. . . . 

Uriah, having taken the pony to a neigh- 
bouring stable, was at work at a desk in this 
room, which had a brass frame on the top to 
hang papers upon, and on which the writing 
he was making a copy of was then hanging. 
Though his face was towards me, I thought, 
for some time, the writing being between us, 
that he could not see me; but looking that 
way more attentively, it made me uncomfort- 
able to observe that, every now and then, his 
sleepless eyes would come below the writing, 
like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me 
for I dare say a whole minute at a time, dur- 
ing which his pen went, or pretended to go, 
as cleverly as ever. I made several attempts 
to get out of their way — such as standing 
on a chair to look at a map on the other 



HUGH 



side of the room, and poring over the col- 
umns of a Kentish newspaper — but they 
always attracted me back again: and when- 
ever I looked toward those two red suns, I 
was sure to find them, either just rising or 
just setting. . . . 

I saw Heep shutting up the office ; and, feel- 
ing friendly towards everybody, went in and 
spoke to him, and at parting, gave him my 
hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his was ! 
as ghostly to the touch as to the sight ! I 
rubbed mine afterwards, to warm it, and to 
rub his off. 

It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, 
when I went to my room, it was still cold and 
wet upon my memory. Leaning out of win- 
dqw, and seeing one of the faces on the 
beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied 
it was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, 
and shut him out in a hurry. 
David Copperfield, ch. xv-xvii, xix, xxv, 

XXXV, xxxvi, xxxix, xlii, xlix, Hi, liv, Ixi. 

Hugh, the natural son of Sir John Chester, 
who from hostler at the Maypole Inn became 
a leader in the Gordon riots. He was cap- 
tured, tried and executed and although Sir 
John is made aware of his relationship to 
him, he is deaf to all appeals on his behalf 
and allows him to go to the gallows zvithout 
lifting a finger in his behalf. 
i6o 



HUGH 



A young man, of a hale, athletic figure, and 
a giant's strength, whose sunburnt face and 
swarthy throat, overgrown with jet-black hair, 
might have served a painter for a model. 
Loosely attired, in the coarsest and roughest 
garb, with scraps of straw and hay — his 
usual bed — clinging here and there, and 
mingling with his uncombed locks, he had 
fallen asleep in a posture as careless as his 
dress. The negligence and disorder of the 
whole man, with something fierce and sullen 
in his features, gave him a picturesque ap- 
pearance, that attracted the regards even of 
the Maypole customers who knew him well, 
and caused Long Parkes to say that Hugh 
looked more like a poaching rascal to-night 
than ever he had seen him yet. , . . 

" That chap, whose mother was hung when 
he- was a little boy, along with six others, for 
passing bad notes — and it's a blessed thing 
to think how many people are hung in batches 
every six weeks for that, and such like of- 
fences, as showing how wide awake our gov- 
ernment is — that chap that was then turned 
loose, and had to mind cows, and frighten 
birds away, and what not, for a few pence to 
live on, and so got on by degrees to mind 
horses, and to sleep in course of time in lofts 
and litter, instead of under haystacks and 
hedges, till at last he come to be hostler at 
i6i 



MR. JAGGERS 



the Maypole for his board and lodging and 
a annual trifle — that chap that can't read 
nor write, and has never had much to do with 
anything but animals, and has never lived in 
any way but like the animals he has lived 
among, is a animal. And," said Mr. Willet, 
arriving at his logical conclusion, " is to be 
treated accordingly." 

Barnaby Rudge, ch. x-xii, xx, xxii, xxiii, 
xxxviii, xxix, xxxiv-xxxv, xxxvii-xl, xliv, 
xlviii-l, liii-liv, lix, Ix, Ixiii-lxv, Ixvii-lxix, 
Ixxiv, Ixxvi-lxxviii. 

Mr. Jaggers, the criminal lawyer of Little 
Britain, London, employed by Magwitch 
(Provis) to inform Pip of his ''great expecta- 
tions " and to supply him with money -while 
waiting. He zvas also Trustee for Miss 
Havisham. 

He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark 
complexion, with an exceedingly large head 
and a corresponding large hand. He took 
my chin in his large hand and turned up 
my face to have a look at me by the light of 
the candle. He was prematurely bald on the 
top of his head, and had bushy black eye- 
brows that wouldn't lie down, but stood up 
bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his 
head, and were disagreeably sharp and sus- 
picious. He had a large watch-chain, and 
162 



MR. JAGGERS 



strong black dots where his beard and whisk- 
ers would have been if he had let them. 
. . . Mr. Jaggers never laughed; but he 
wore great bright creaking boots; and, in 
poising himself on those boots, with his large 
head bent down and his eyebrows joined to- 
gether, awaiting an answer, he sometimes 
caused the boots to creak, as if they laughed 
in a dry and suspicious way. ... If any- 
body, of whatsoever degree, said a word that 
he didn't approve of, he instantly required 
to have it "taken down." If anybody 
wouldn't make an admission, he said, " I'll 
have it out of you ! " and if anybody made 
an admission, he said, " Now I have got 
you ! " The magistrates shivered under a sin- 
gle bite of his finger. Thieves and thieftakers 
hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank 
when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their 
direction. . . . 

He always carried a pocket-handkerchief of 
rich silk and of imposing proportions, which 
was of great value to him in his profession. 
I have seen him so terrify a client or a wit- 
ness by ceremoniously unfolding his pocket- 
handkerchief as if he were immediately going 
to blow his nose, and then pausing, as if he 
knew he should not have time to do it, be- 
fore such client or witness committed himself, 
that the self-committal has followed directly, 
quite as a matter of course. 
163 



MRS. JARLEY 



Great Expectations, ch. xi, xviii, xx, xxi, 
xxiv, xxvi, xxix, xl, xUx, li, Ivi. 

Mrs. Jarley, Wax Work Show Proprietor 
who engaged Little Nell as demonstrator of 
her collection. 

At the open door [of the caravan] graced 
with a bright brass knocker, sat a Christian 
lady, stout and comfortable to look upon, who 
wore a large bonnet trembling with bows. 
And that it was not an unprovided or desti- 
tute caravan was clear from this lady's occu- 
pation, which was the very pleasant and re- 
freshing one of taking tea. The tea-things, 
including a bottle of rather suspicious charac- 
ter and a cold knuckle of ham, were set forth 
upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; 
and there, as if at the most convenient round- 
table in all the world, sat this roving lady, 
taking her tea and enjoying the prospect. . . 

[She] unfolded [a] scroll, whereon was the 
inscription, " One hundred figures the full size 
of life," and then another scroll, on which was 
written, " The only stupendous collection of 
real wax-work in the world," and then sev- 
eral smaller scrolls with such inscriptions as 
" Now exhibiting within " — " The genuine 
and only Jarley " — " Jarley's unrivalled col- 
lection " — " Jarley is the delight of the Nobil- 
ity and Gentry " — " The Royal Family are the 
164 



MRS. JARLEY 



patrons of Jarley." When she had exhibited 
these leviathans of public announcement to 
the astonished child, she brought forth speci- 
mens of the lesser fry in the shape of hand- 
bills, some of which were couched in the form 
of parodies on popular melodies, as " Believe 
me if all Jarley's wax-work so rare " — " I saw 
thy show in youthful prime " — " Over the 
water to Jarley;" while, to consult all tastes, 
others were composed with a view to the 
lighter and more facetious spirits, as a parody 
on the favourite air of " If I had a donkey," 
beginning 

If I know'd a donkey wot wouldn't go 
To see Mrs. Jarley's wax-work show. 
Do you think I'd acknowledge him 
Oh no no! 

Then run to Jarley's — 

— besides several compositions in prose, pur- 
porting to be dialogues between the Emperor 
of China and an oyster, or the Archbishop 
of Canterbury and a Dissenter on the subject 
of church-rates, but all having the same moral, 
namely, that the reader must make haste to 
Jarley's, and that children and servants were 
admitted at half-price. When she had 
brought all these testimonials of her important 
position in society to bear, Mrs. Jarley rolled 
them up, and put them carefully away. . . . 
165 



MRS. JARLEY 



It's calm and — what's that word again — 
critical ? — no — classical, that's it — it's calm 
and classical. No low beatings and knocks* 
ings about, no jokings and squeakings like 
your precious Punches, but always the same, 
with a constantly unchanging air of coldness 
and gentility; and so like life, that if wax- 
work only spoke and walked about, you'd 
hardly know the difference. I won't go so 
far as to say, that, as it is, I've seen wax- 
work quite like life, but I've certainly seen 
some life that was exactly like wax-work." 
. . . It's Jarley's wax-work, remember. 
The duty's very light and genteel, the com- 
pany particular select, the exhibition takes 
place in assembly-rooms, town-halls, large 
rooms at inns, or auction galleries. There is 
none of your open-air wagrancy at Jarley's, 
recollect; there is no tarpaulin and sawdust 
at Jarley's, remember. Every expectation 
held out in the handbills is realised to the ut- 
most, and the whole forms an effect of impos- 
ing brilliancy hitherto unrivalled in this king- 
dom. Remember that the price of admission 
is only sixpence, and that this is an oppor- 
tunity which may never occur again ! " 
The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xxvi-xxix, xxxi, 

xxxii, xlvii, Ixxiii. 



i66 



JOHN JARNDYCE 



John Jarndyce, one of the parties in 
the famous Chancery Suit of Jarndyce v. 
Jarndyce — the guardian of Richard Carstone 
and Ada Clare, and the protector of Esther 
Summerson. He was an old bachelor of sixty 
— and when displeased, disappointed or de- 
ceived in any one, the wind was always " in 
the East" — as he said, and then he took 
refuge in his Library which he called " The 
Growlery." He will have nothing to do with 
the case which has been the despair and ruin 
of so much hope and of so many lives — and 
which only came to an end when the whole 
estate had been eaten up in costs. 

It was a handsome, lively, quick face, full 
of change and motion; and his hair was a 
silvered iron-grey. I took him to be nearer 
sixty than fifty, but he was upright, hearty, 
and robust. 

He thus describes the famous case: — 

" It's aboijt a Will, and the trusts under a 
Will — or it was, once. It's about nothing 
but Costs, now. We are always appearing, and 
disappearing, and swearing, and interrogat- 
ing, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, 
and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and 
reporting, and revolving about the Lord Chan- 
cellor and all his satellites, and equitably 
waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about 
Costs. That's the great question. All the 
167 



JOHN JARNDYCE 



rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted 
away. . . . 

" A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made 
a great fortune, and made a great Will. In 
the question how the trusts under that Will 
are to be administered, the fortune left by the 
Will is squandered away; the legatees under 
the Will are reduced to such a miserable con- 
dition that they would be sufficiently pun- 
ished, if they had committed an enormous 
crime in having money left them; and the 
Will itself is made a dead letter. All through 
the deplorable cause, everything that every- 
body in it, except one man, knows already, is 
referred to that only one man who don't know 
it, to find out — all through the deplorable 
cause, everybody must have copies, over and 
over again, of everything that has accumu- 
lated about it in the way of cartloads of pa- 
pers (or must pay for them without having 
them, which is the usual course, for nobody 
wants them) ; and must go down the middle 
and up again, through such an infernal coun- 
try-dance of costs and fees and nonsense suit 
on any terms, for we are made parties to it, 
and must he parties to it, whether we like it 
or not. But it won't do to think of it ! When 
my great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce began to 
think of it, it was the beginning of the end ! " 
Bleak House, ch. i, Hi, vi, viii, ix, xni-xv, 
i68 



MRS. JELLYBY 



xvii, xviii, xxiii, xxiv, xxx, xxxi, xxxv- 
xxxvii, xxxix, xliii-xlv, xlvi, l-lUi, Ivi, Ix- 
Ixii, Ixiv, Ixv, Ixvii. 

Mrs. Jellyby, a " blue stocking," so ah- 
sorhed in her self-imposed tasks that she neg- 
lects her family, and drives her husband to 
dejection and bankruptcy. 

A lady of very remarkable strength of char- 
acter, who devotes herself entirely to the pub- 
lic. She has devoted herself to an extensive 
variety of public subjects, at various times, 
and is at present (until something else at- 
tracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa; 
with a view to the general cultivation of the 
coffee berry — and the natives — and the 
happy settlement, on the banks of the African 
rivers, of our super-abundant home popula- 
tion. . . . She was a pretty, plump di- 
minutive woman of from forty to fifty, with 
handsome eyes, though they had a curious 
habit of seeming to look a long way off. . . . 
Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair, but was too 
much occupied with her African duties to 
brush it. The shawl in which she had been 
loosely muffled, dropped on to her chair when 
she advanced to us; and as she turned to re- 
sume her seat, we could not help noticing that 
her dress didn't nearly meet up the back, and 
that the open space was railed across with a 
169 



MRS. JELLYBY 



lattice-work of stay-lace — like a summer- 
house. 

The room, which was strewn with papers 
and nearly filled by a great writing-table cov- 
ered with similar litter, was, I must say, not 
only very untidy, but very dirty. . . . 

" You find me, my dears," said Mrs. Jellyby, 
snuffing the two great office candles in tin 
candlesticks which made the room taste 
strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, 
and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, 
a bundle of wood, and a poker), "you find 
me, my dears, as usual, vefy busy; but that 
you will excuse. The African project at pres- 
ent employs my whole time. It involves me 
in correspondence with public bodies, and with 
private individuals anxious for the welfare 
of their species all over the country. I am 
happy to say it is advancing. We hope by 
this time next year to have from a hundred 
and fifty to two hundred healthy families culti- 
vating coffee and educating the natives of 
Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the 
Niger." . . . 

All through dinner ; which was long, in con- 
sequence of such accidents as the dish of pota- 
toes being mislaid in the coal scuttle, and the 
handle of the cork-screw coming off,' and strik- 
ing the young woman in the chin; Mrs. 
Jellyby preserved the evenness of her disposi- 
170 



ALFRED JINGLE 



tion. She told us a great deal that was in- 
teresting about Borrioboola-Gha and the na- 
tives; and received so many letters that 
Richard, who sat by her, saw four envelopes 
in the gravy at once. Some of the letters 
were proceedings of ladies' committees, or 
resolutions of ladies' meetings, which she read 
to us; others were applications from people 
excited in various ways about the cultivation 
of coffee, and natives; others required an- 
swers, and these she sent her eldest daughter 
from the table three or four times to write. 
She was full of business, and undoubtedly was, 
as she had told us, devoted to the cause. 
. . . sitting in quite a nest of waste paper 
[she] drank coffee all the evening, and dic- 
tated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She 
also held a discussion with Mr. Quale: of 
which the subject seemed to be — the Brother- 
hood of Humanity, and gave utterance to some 
beautiful sentiments. 

Bleak House, ch. iv, v, xix, xxiii, xxx, 
xxxviii, I, Ixvi. 

Alfred Jingle, a man of much verbiage hut 
few verbs. His talk is a series of discon- 
nected phrases, but he makes himself well 
understood. As D' Israeli said of a famous 
statesman, he is " intoxicated with the exuber- 
ance of his own verbosity." He was a stroll- 
171 



ALFRED JINGLE 



ing actor, and a sad scamp, passing himself 
off as a person of importance and sponging 
his way through life. He finally lands in the 
Fleet prison, and is in great destitution and 
distress. Mr. Pickwick releases him on evi- 
dence of his penitence and on his promises to 
reform, which were faithfully kept. 

He was about the middle height, but the 
thinness of his body, and the length of his 
l^g's, gave him the appearance of being much 
taller. The green coat had been a smart dress 
garment in the days of swallow-tails, but had 
evidently in those times adorned a much 
shorter man than the stranger, for the soiled 
and faded sleeves scarcely reached to his 
wrists. It was buttoned closely up to his chin, 
at the imminent hazard of splitting the back ; 
and an old stock, without a vestige of shirt 
collar, ornamented his neck. His scanty black 
trousers displayed here and there those shiny 
patches which bespeak long service, and were 
strapped very tightly over a pair of patched 
and mended shoes, as if to conceal the dirty 
white stockings, which were nevertheless dis- 
tinctly visible. His long black hair escaped 
in negligent waves from beneath each side of 
his old pinched up hat; and glimpses of his 
bare wrist might be observed, between the 
tops of his gloves, and the cuffs of his coat 
sleeves. His face was thin and haggard; but 
172 



JO 



an indescribable air of jaunty impudence and 
perfect self-possession pervaded the whole 
man. 

Pickwick Papers, ch. ii. Hi, vH-x, xv, xxv, 
xlii, xlv, xlvii, Hi. 

To alias '' Tougheyr a street crossing 
sweeper. He was befriended by the unfortu- 
nate Captain Hawdon, and as he was seen 
speaking to him before his sudden death, he 
was brought before the Coroner's jury, but 
his evidence was set aside. He becomes pos- 
sessed of information in connection with the 
secret of Lady Dedlock, and is constantly be- 
ing told to " move on " by the police. He is 
anally found by Dr. Alan Woodcourt, who 
takes care of him, in the illness which ter- 
minated in his death, and who saw that he 
zvas buried according to his wish m the stran- 
gers' burying ground near his unknown friend. 
Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very 
razeed. Now, boy! -But stop a mmute. 
Caution. This boy must be put through a 
few preliminary paces. 

Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. 
Don't know that everybody has two names. 
Never heerd of sich a think. Don't know that 
To is short for a longer name. Thmks it 
long enough for him. He don't find no fault 
with it. Spell it? No. He can't spell it. 
173 



JO 

No father, no mother, no friends. Never 
been to school. What's home? Knows a 
broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to 
tell a lie. Don't recollect who told him about 
the broom, or about the lie, but knows both. 
Can't exactly say what'll be done to him arter 
he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen 
here, but believes it'll be something wery bad 
to punish him, and serve him right — and so 
he'll tell the truth. . . . 

While the Coroner buttons his great-coat, 
Mr. Tulkinghorn and he give private audience 
to the rejected witness in a corner. 

That graceless creature only knows that the 
dead man (whom he recognised just now by 
his yellow face and black hair) was some- 
times hooted and pursued about the streets. 
That one cold winter night, when he, the boy, 
was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, 
the man turned to look at him, and came 
back, and, having questioned him and found 
that he had not a friend in the world, said, 
" Neither have I. Not one ! " and gave him 
the price of a supper and a night's lodging. 
That the man had often spoken to him since; 
and asked him whether he slept sound at 
night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and 
whether he ever wished to die; and similar 
strange questions. That when the man had 
no money, he would say in passing, " I am as 
174 



JO 

poor as you to-day, Jo ; " but that when he 
had any, he had always (as the boy most 
heartily believes) been glad to give him some. 

" He was wery good to me," says the boy, 
wiping his eyes with his wretched sleeve. 
" Wen I see him a layin' so stritched out just 
now, I wished he could have heerd me tell 
him so. He wos wery good to me, he wos ! " 

With the night, comes a slouching figure 
through the tunnel-court, to the outside of the 
iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands, 
and looks in between the bars; stands looking 
in, for a little while. 

It then, with an old broom it carries, softly 
sweeps the step, and makes the archway clean. 
It does so, very busily and trimly; looks in 
again, a little while ; and so departs. 

Jo, is it thou ? Well, well ! Though a re- 
jected witness, who " can't exactly say " what 
will be done to him in greater hands than 
men's, thou art not quite in outer darkness. 
There is something like a distant ray of light 
in thy muttered reason for this : 

" He wos wery good to me, he wos ! " . . . 

Jo moves on, through the long vacation, 
down to Blackfriars Bridge, where he finds a 
baking stony corner wherein to settle to his 
repast. 

And there he sits, munching and gnawing, 
and looking up at the great Cross on the sum- 
175 



MR. JORKINS 



mit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above 
a red and violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From 
the boy's face one might suppose that sacred 
emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning con- 
fusion of the great, confused city; so golden, 
so high up, so far out of his reach. There 
he sits, the sun going down, the river running 
fast, the crowd flowing by him in two streams 
— everything moving on to some purpose and 
to one end — until he is stirred up, and told to 
" move on " too. 

Bleak House, ch. xi, xvi, xix, xx, xxv, xxix, 
xxxii, xlvi, xlii. 

Mr. Jorkins, one of the Firm of Spenlow 
and Jorkins, to which Copperfield was arti- 
cled. 

He was a mild man oi a heavy tempera- 
ment, whose place in the business was to 
keep himself in the background, and be con- 
stantly exhibited by name as the most ob- 
durate and ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted 
his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn't listen 
to such a proposition. If a client were slow 
to settle his bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was re- 
solved to have it paid; and however painful 
these things might be (and always were) to 
the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins 
would have his bond. The heart and hand 
of the good angel Spenlow would have been 
176 



MISS LA CREEVY 



always open, but for the restraining demon 
Jorkins. As I have grown older, I think I 
have had experience of some other houses do- 
ing business on the principle of Spenlow and 
Jorkins ! 

David Copperiield, ch. xxiii, xxix, xxxv, 
xxxviii, xxxix. 

Miss La Creevy^ a miniature painter — a 
young lady of fifty — who was a warm friend 
of the Nicklebys. She finally married Tom 
Linkinwater, the head clerk of Cheeryble 
Brothers. 

The little bustling, active, cheerful creature, 
existed entirely within herself, talked to her- 
self, made a confidant of herself, was as sar- 
castic as she could be, on people who of- 
fended her, by herself; pleased herself, and 
did no harm. If she indulged in scandal, no- 
body's reputation suffered; and if she enjoyed 
a little bit of revenge, no living soul was one 
atom the worse. One of the many to whom, 
from straitened circumstances, a consequent 
inability to form the associations they would 
wish, and a disinclination to mix with the so- 
ciety they could obtain, London is as complete 
a solitude as the plains of Syria, the humble 
artist had pursued her lonely, but contented 
way for many years ; and, until the peculiar 
misfortunes of the Nickleby family attracted 
177 



TIM LINKINWATER 



her attention, had made no friends, though 
brimful of the friendhest feeHngs to all man- 
kind. There are many warm hearts in the 
same solitary guise as poor Miss La Creevy's. 
Nicholas Nicklehy, ch. Hi, v, x, xi, xx, xxxi, 
xxxiii, XXXV, xxxviii, xlix, Ixi, Ixiii, Ixv. 

Tim Linkinwater, Cheeryble Brothers' 
head clerk to whose work Nicholas Nicklehy 
in part succeeded. He married Miss La 
Creevy, the miniature painter. 

Punctual as the counting-house dial, which 
he maintained to be the best time-keeper in 
London next after the clock of some old, hid- 
den, unknown church hard by (for Tim held 
the fabled goodness of that at the Horse 
Guards to be a pleasant fiction, invented by 
jealous Westenders), the old clerk performed 
the minutest actions of the day, and arranged 
the minutest articles in the little room, in a 
precise and regular order, which could not 
have been exceeded if it had actually been a 
real glass case fitted with the choicest curios- 
ities. Paper, pens, ink, ruler, sealing-wax, 
wafers, pounce-box, string-box, fire-box, Tim's 
hat, Tim's scrupulously folded gloves, Tim's 
other coat — looking precisely like a back 
view of himself as it hung against the wall — 
all had their accustomed inches of space. Ex- 
cept the clock, there was not such an accurate 
178 



LITTIMER 



and unimpeachable instrument in existence 
as the little thermometer which hung behind 
the door. . . . 

It was a sight to behold Tim Linkinwater 
slowly bring out a massive ledger and day 
book, and, after turning them over and over 
and affectionately dusting their backs and 
sides, open the leaves here and there, and cast 
his eyes half-mournfully, half-proudly, upon 
the fair and unblotted entries. . . . 

" It's forty-four year," said Tim, making a 
calculation in the air with his pen, and draw- 
ing an imaginary line before he cast it up, 
" forty- four year, next May, since I first kept 
the books of Cheeryble Brothers. I've opened 
the safe every morning all that time (Sun- 
days excepted) as the clock struck nine, and 
gone over the house every night at half-past 
ten (except on Foreign Post nights, and then 
twenty minutes before twelve) to see the 
doors fastened and the fires out. I've never 
slept out of the back attic one single night. 
Nicholas Nicklehy, ch. xxxv, xxxvii, xl, xliii, 
xlix, Iv, lix-lxi, Ixiii, Ixv. 

LiTTiMER, Steerforth's conMential serving 
man, — and a thorough rascal. He aided 
Steerforth in running azvay with little Emily 
— and stood ready to marry her when Steer- 
forth wished to cast her oif. He ends his 
179 



LITTIMER 



days in Mr. Creakle's model prison, where he 
is one of the model prisoners, on show to 
visitors as a pious example of the effects of 
the treatment given there. 

I believe there never existed in his station 
a more respectable-looking man. He was 
taciturn, soft-footed, very quiet in his man- 
ner, deferential, observant, always at hand 
when wanted, and never near when not 
wanted; but his great claim to consideration 
was his respectability. He had not a pliant 
face, he had rather a stiff neck, rather a tight 
smooth head with short hair clinging to it at 
the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a pe- 
culiar habit of whispering the letter S so dis- 
tinctly, that he seemed to use it oftener than 
any other man; but every peculiarity that he 
had he made respectable. If his nose had 
been upside-down, he would have made that 
respectable. He surrounded himself with an 
atmosphere of respectability, and walked se- 
cure in it. It would have been next to im- 
possible to suspect him of anything wrong, he 
was so thoroughly respectable. Nobody could 
have thought of putting him in a livery, he 
was so highly respectable. To have imposed 
any derogatory work upon him, would have 
been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings 
of a most respectable man. And of this, I 
noticed the women-servants in the household 
i8o 



MR. JARVIS LORRY 



were so intuitively conscious, that they always 
did such work themselves, and generally while 
he read the paper by the pantry fire. 

Such a self-contained man I never saw. 
But in that quahty, as in every other he pos- 
sessed, he only seemed to be the more re- 
spectable. Even the fact that no one knew 
his Christian name, seemed to form a part of 
his respectability. Nothing could be objected 
against his surname Littimer, by which he 
was known. Peter might have been hanged, 
or Tom transported; but Littimer was per- 
fectly respectable. ... 
David Copperileld, cK xxi-xxiii, xxvin, xxix, 
xxxi, xxxii, xliv, Ixi. 

Mr. Jarvis Lorry, Tellson and Co.'s confi- 
dential clerk. He was charged with the task 
of taking Miss Manette to her father who 
had been released from the Bastille and bring- 
ing them back to England. During the awfu[ 
scenes of the Revolution in Paris he was their 
companion and friend and it is he who finally 
brings them back to England after their sec- 
ond visit to Paris. 

Very orderly and methodical he looked, with 
a hand on each knee, and a loud watch tick- 
ing a sonorous sermon under his flapped 
waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity and 
longevity against the levity and evanescence 
i8i 



MR. JARVIS LORRY 



of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was 
a little vain of it, for his brown stockings 
fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine tex- 
ture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, 
were trim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp 
flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: 
which wig, it is to be presumed, was made 
of hair, but which looked far more as though 
it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. 
His linen, though not of a fineness in accord- 
ance with his stockings, was as white as the 
tops of the waves that broke upon the neigh- 
bouring beach, or the specks of sail that 
glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face 
habitually suppressed and quieted, was still 
lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of 
moist bright eyes that it must have cost their 
owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill 
to the composed and reserved expression of 
Tellson's Bank. He had a healthy colour in 
his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore 
few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps, the con- 
fidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank 
were principally occupied with the cares of 
other people; and perhaps second-hand cares, 
like second-hand clothes, come easily off and 
on. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, ch. ii-vi; Book 

II, ch. ii-iv, vi, xii, xvi-xxi, xxiv; Book III, 

ch. ii-vi, viii, ix, xi-xiii, xv. 
182 



MRS. LUPIN 



Mrs. Lupin, the landlady of the Blue 
Dragon Inn, the friend of Tom Pinch. After 
Mark Tapley's "jolly" career in America he 
returned and married her. 

The mistress of the Blue Dragon was in 
outward appearance just what a landlady 
should be: broad, buxom, comfortable, and 
good-looking, with a face of clear red and 
white, which, by its jovial aspect, at once 
bore testimony to her hearty participation in 
the good things of the larder and the cellar, 
and to their thriving and healthful influences. 
She was a widow, but years ago had passed 
through her state of weeds, and burst into 
flower again; and in full bloom she had con- 
tinued ever since; and in full bloom she was 
now; with roses on her ample skirts, and 
roses on her bodice, roses in her cap, roses in 
her cheeks,— ay, and roses, worth the gath- 
ering too, on her. lips, for that matter. She 
had still a bright black eye, and jet black hair; 
was comely, dimpled, plump, and tight as a 
gooseberry; and though she was not exactly 
what the world calls young, you may make an 
affidavit, on trust, before any mayor or magis- 
trate in Christendom, that there are a great 
many young ladies in the world (blessings on 
them, one and all!) whom you wouldn't like 
half as well, or admire half as much, as the 
beaming hostess of the Blue Dragon. 
183 



MR. McCHOAKUMCHILD 



Martin Chuzslewit, ch. Hi, iv, vii, xxxi, xxxvi, 
xxxvii, xlii, xliv, liii. 

Mr. McChoakumchild, the Teacher in Mr. 
Gradgrind's Model School. 

He and some one hundred and forty other 
schoolmasters had been lately turned at the 
same time, in the same factory, on the same 
principles, like so many pianoforte legs. He 
had been put through an immense variety of 
paces, and had answered volumes of head- 
breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, 
syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, 
geography, and general cosmography, the sci- 
ences of compound proportion, algebra, land- 
surveying and levelling, vocal music, and 
drawing from models, were all at the ends of 
his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his 
stony way into Her Majesty's most Honour- 
able Privy Council's Schedule B, and had taken 
the bloom off the higher branches of mathe- 
matics and physical science, French, German, 
Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the 
Water Sheds of all the world (whatever they 
are), and all the histories of all the peoples, 
and all the names of all the rivers and moun- 
tains, and all the productions, manners, and 
customs of all the countries, and all their 
boundaries and bearings on the two and thirty 
points of the compass. Ah, rather overdone, 
184 



MAGGY 



McChoakumchild. If he had only learnt a lit- 
tle less, how infinitely better he might have 
.taught much more! 

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, 
not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: 
looking into all the vessels ranged before him, 
one after another, to see what they contained. 
Say, good McChoakumchild. When from thy 
boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim 
full by-and-bye, dost thou think that thou 
wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy 
lurking within — or sometimes only maim him 
and distort him ! 
Hard Times, Book I, ch. i-iii, ix, xiv. 

Maggy, a protegee of Little Dorrit, after- 
wards assistant to Mrs. Plornish. She was a 
grand-daughter of Mrs. Bangham — and a 
faithful creature who followed little Dorrit 
everywhere and obeyed her implicitly. 

She was about eight-and-twenty, with large 
bones, large features, large feet and hands, 
large eyes and no hair. Her large eyes were 
limpid and almost colourless; they seemed to 
be very little affected by light, and to stand 
unnaturally still. There was also that atten- 
tive listening expression in her face, which 
is seen in the faces of the blind; but she was 
not blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye. 
Her face was not exceedingly ugly, though 
185 



MAGGY 



it was only redeemed from being so by a 
smile; a good-humoured smile, and pleasant 
in itself, but rendered pitiable by being con- 
stantly there. A great white cap, with a 
quantity of opaque frilling that was always 
flapping about, apologised for Maggy's bald- 
ness, and made it so very difficult for her old 
black bonnet to retain its place upon her head, 
that it held on round her neck like a gipsy's 
baby. A commission of haberdashers could 
alone have reported what the rest of her poor 
dress was made of; but it had a strong gen- 
eral semblance to seaweed, with here and 
there a gigantic tea-leaf. Her shawl looked 
particularly like a tea-leaf, after long infu- 
sion. . . . 

Nothing would serve Maggy but that they 
must stop at a grocer's window, short of their 
destination, for her to show her learning. 
She could read after a sort; and picked out 
the fat figures in the tickets of prices, for the 
most part correctly. She also stumbled, with 
a large balance of success against her fail- 
ures, through various philanthropic recom- 
mendations to Try oiir Mixture, Try our Fam- 
ily Black, Try our Orange-flavoured Pekoe, 
challenging competition at the head of Flow- 
ery Teas; and various cautions to the public 
against spurious establishments and adulter- 
ated articles. 

i86 



ABEL MAGWITCH 



Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. ix, xiv, xx, xxii, 
xxiv, xxxi, xxxii, xxxv, xxxvi; Book II, 
ch. in, iv, xiii, xxix, xxxiii, xxxiv. 

Abel Magwitch {alias Provis), the es- 
caped convict who was supplied with a Hie 
and food by the hoy Pip. Recaptured and 
transported to New South Wales, he escapes 
again, goes up country and becomes rich by 
sheep farming. In gratitude to Pip he sets 
him up as a gentleman through Mr. Jaggers, 
who was his hanker and guardian. Pip all 
the while was under the impression that Miss 
Havisham was befriending him. Under the 
name of Provis, Magwitch returns to England 
and makes himself known to Pip. But he is 
betrayed and recaptured, losing the whole of 
his money in endeavouring to escape, Unally 
dying in prison. 

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a 
great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, 
and with broken shoes, and with an old rag 
tied round his head. A man who had been 
soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and 
lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung 
by nettles, and torn by briars ; who limped, 
and shivered, and glared and growled; and 
whose teeth chattered in his head. ... I 
had often watched a large dog of ours eating 
his food; and I now noticed a decided simi- 
187 



DR. ALEXANDER MANETTE 

larity between the dog's way of eating, and the 
man's. The man took strong sharp sudden 
bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or 
rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon 
and too fast; and he looked sideways here and 
there while he ate, as if he thought there was 
danger in every direction of somebody's com- 
ing to take the pie away. He was altogether 
too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate 
it comfortably, I thought, or to have anybody 
to dine with him, without making a chop with 
his jaws at the visitor. In all of which par- 
ticulars he was very like the dog. 
Great Expectations, ch, i. Hi, v, xixix-xlii, xlvi, 
liv-lvi. 

Dr. Alexander Manette, a Paris Physi- 
cian confined in solitude for i8 years in the 
Bastille to hide the crime of a noble family 
of which he had become cognisant. Here his 
only occupation was that of shoe-making. 
Released he goes to England and lives with 
his daughter who marries Charles Darnay (St. 
Evremonde). The latter was called back to 
Paris to help an old and faithful servant and 
was at once imprisoned as a proscribed emi- 
grant. Dr. Manette and his daughter follow 
him and the former secures his acquittal. But 
he is again denounced as an aristocrat through 
some papers written by Dr. Manette when a 
i88 



DR. ALEXA NDER MANETTE 

prisoner in the Bastille and secreted there 
Darnay is condemned to death, rescued by 
Sydney Carton, who dies in h.s stead, and the 
Doctor and his family return to England for 
the rest of their days. 

A white head bent low over the shoe mak- . 
in„ . . . a broad ray of light . . • 
showed the workman with an unfinished shoe 
upon his lap, pausing in his labour. His few 
common tools and various scraps of leather 
were at his feet and on his bench. He had a 
white beard, raggedly cut, but not very long 
a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes_ 
The hoUowness and thinness of his face would 
have caused them to look large, ""der ^is yet 
dark eyebrows and his confused white ha.r 
though they had been really otherwise, but, 
hey were naturally large, and looked unnatu- 
raUy so. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at 
the throat, and showed his body to be with- 
ered and worn. He, and his old canvas frock, 
and his loose stockings, and all his poor tat- 
ters of clothes, had, in a long secl"-°" ^'f" 
direct light and air, faded down to such a dull 
unfformfty of parchment-yellow, that it would 
have been hard to say which was which 

He had put up a hand between ^'^ eyes and 

the light, and the very bones of it seemed 

„* <;n he sat with a steadfastly va- 

transparent. bo he sat, wui' * 

cant gaze, pausing in his work. He never 



DR. ALEXANDER MANETTE 

looked at the figure before him, without first 
looking down on this side of himself, then on 
that, as if he had lost the habit of associating 
place with sound ; he never spoke, without first 
wandering in this manner, and forgetting to 
speak. 

He laid the knuckles of the right hand 
in the hollow of the left, and then the 
knuckles of the left hand in the hollow of the 
right, and then passed a hand across the 
bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, 
without a moment's intermission. The task 
of recalling him from the vagrancy into which 
he always sank when he had spoken, was like 
recalling some very weak person from a 
swoon, or endeavouring, in the hope of some 
disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fast-dying 
man. . . . 

The faintness of the voice was pitiable and 
dreadful. It was not the faintness of phys- 
ical weakness, though confinement and hard 
fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplor- 
able peculiarity was, that it was the faint- 
ness of solitude and disuse. It was like the 
last feeble echo of a sound made long and long 
ago. So entirely had it lost the life and reso- 
nance of the human voice, that it affected the 
senses like a once beautiful colour faded away 
into a poor weak stain. So sunken and sup- 
pressed it was, that it was like a voice under- 
190 



DR. ALEXANDER MANETTE 

ground. So expressive it was, of a hopeless 
and lost creature, that a famished traveller, 
wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilder- 
ness, would have remembered home and 
friends in such a tone before lying down to 
die. . . . 

As the captive of many years sat looking 
fixedly, by turns, at Mr. Lorry and at De- 
farge, some long obliterated marks of an ac- 
tively intent intelligence in the middle of the 
forehead, gradually forced themselves through 
the black mist that had fallen on him. They 
were overclouded again, they were fainter, 
they were gone ; but they had been there. . . 

It would have been difficult by a far 
brighter light, to recognize in Doctor Manette, 
intellectual of face and upright of bearing, 
the shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, 
no one could have looked at him twice, without 
looking again: even though the opportunity 
of observation had not extended to the mourn- 
ful cadence of his low grave voice, and to 
the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, 
without any apparent reason. While one ex- 
ternal cause, and that a reference to his 
long lingering agony, would always — as on 
the trial — evoke this condition from the 
depths of his soul, it was also in its nature 
to arise of itself, and to draw a gloom over 
him, as incomprehensible to those unac- 
191 



MINNIE MEAGLES 



quainted with his story as if they had seen 
the shadow of the actual Bastille thrown 
upon him by a summer sun, when the sub- 
stance was three hundred miles away. 

Only his daughter had the power of charm- 
ing this black brooding from his mind. She 
was the golden thread that united him to a 
Past beyond his misery, and to a Present 
beyond his misery: and the sound of her 
voice, the light of her face, the touch of her 
hand, had a strong beneficial influence with 
him almost always. Not absolutely always, 
for she could recall some occasions on which 
her power had failed; but they were few and 
slight, and she believed them over. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, ch. ii-vi; Book 
II, ch. ii-iv, vi, ix, x, xii, xiii, xvi-xxi, 
xxiv; Book III, ch, ii-vii, ix-xii, xiv, xv. 

Minnie Meagles (Pet). The daughter of 
Mr. and Mrs. Meagles — afterwards the wife 
of Henry Gowan. 

Pet was about twenty. A fair girl with 
rich brown hair hanging free in natural ring- 
lets. A lovely girl, with a frank face, and 
wonderful eyes; so large, so soft, so bright, 
set to such perfection in her kind good head. 
She was round and fresh and dimpled and 
spoilt, and there was in Pet an air of timidity 
and dependence which was the best weakness 
192 



MINNIE MEAGLES 



in the world, and gave her the only crowning 
charm a girl so pretty and pleasant could have 
been without. ... ,. . u 

Pet had a twin sister who died when we 
could just see her eyes -exactly like Pets 
-above the table, as she *stood on tiptoe 
holding by it. . . . Pet and her baby sis- 
ter were so exactly alike, and so completely 
one, that in our thoughts we have never been 
able to separate them since. It would be of no 
use to tell us that our dead child was a mere 
infant. We have changed that child accord- 
ing to the changes in the child spared to us 
and always with us. As Pet has grown, that 
child has grown; as Pet has become more 
sensible and womanly, her sister ^f^^^'^^l 
more sensible and womanly, by just the same 
degrees. It would be as hard to convince me 
that if I was to pass into the other world to- 
morrow, I should not, th^«^g^;^%^^^!'y. f, 
God, be received there by a daughter, just 
like Pet, as to persuade me that Pet herself 
is not a reality at my side. • • ; . , 

As to her, the sudden loss of her little 
picture and playfellow, and her early asso- 
ciation with that mystery m which we all 
have our equal share, but which is not often 
so forcibly presented to a child, has neces- 
sarily had some influence on her character 
Then her mother and I were not young when 



193 



WILKINS MICAWBER 



we married, and Pet has always had a sort 
of grown-up life with us, though we have 
tried to adapt ourselves to her. We have been 
advised more than once when she has been a 
little ailing, to change climate and air for her 
as often as we* could — especially at about 
this time of her life — and to keep her amused. 
So, as I have no need to stick at a bank- 
desk now (though I have been poor enough 
in my time I assure you, or I should have 
married Mrs. Meagles long before), we go 
trotting about the world. 
Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. it, xvi, xvii, xxviii, 

xxxiii, xxxiv; Book II, ch. vUi, ix, xxxiii, 

xxxiv, 

Mr. Wilkins Micawber, a recklessly im- 
provident man of variable spirits — fond of 
conviviality and inveterahly addicted to writ- 
ing grandiloquent letters — which resembled 
his manner of speech. Shabby, shifting, and 
full of devices to earn a living in a way be- 
coming a gentleman and always waiting for 
"something to turn up." Copperfield lodged 
in his house when he iirst went to London. 
He tries occupations too numerous to men- 
tion and at length becomes clerk to Uriah 
Heep in Mr. WickHeld's oiHce. After expos- 
ing the frauds of the former, he, aided by 
Miss Betsey Trotwood and her friends, emi- 
194 



WILKINS MICAWBER 



grates to Australia where he becomes Dis- 
trict Magistrate of Port Middlehay. 

He was a stoutish, middle-aged person, in 
a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, 
with no more hair upon his head (which was 
a large one, and very shining) than there is 
upon an tgg, and with a very extensive face, 
which he turned full upon me. His clothes 
were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt- 
collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a 
stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to 
it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his 
coat, — for ornament, I afterwards found, as 
he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't 
see anything when he did. . . . 

" I have received," said the stranger, " a 
letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he men- 
tions that he would desire me to receive into 
an apartment in the rear of my house, which 
is at present unoccupied — and is, in short, 
to be let as a — in short," said the stranger, 
with a smile and in a burst of confidence, 
" as a bedroom — the young beginner whom 

I have now the pleasure to " and the 

stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin 
in his shirt-collar. 

" This is Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion 
to me. 

" Ahem ! " said the stranger, " that is my 
name." 

195 



WILKINS MICAWBER 



" Mr. Micawber," said Mr. Quinion, " is 
known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders 
for us on commission, when he can get any. 
He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, 
on the subject of your lodgings, and he will 
receive you as a lodger." . . . 

Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. 
I never saw him such good company. He 
made his face shine with the punch, so that 
it looked as if it had been varnished all 
over. He got cheerfully sentimental about the 
town, and proposed success to it; observing 
that Mrs. Micawber and himself had been 
made extremely snug and comfortable there, 
and that he never should forget the agreeable 
hours they had passed in Canterbury. He 
proposed me afterwards; and he, and Mrs. 
Micawber, and I, took a review of our past 
acquaintance, in the course of which, we sold 
the property all over again. Then I proposed 
Mrs. Micawber; or, at least, said, modestly, 
" if you'll allow me, Mrs. Micawber, I shall 
now have the pleasure of drinking your 
health, ma'am." On which Mr, Micawber 
delivered an eulogium on Mrs. Micawber's 
character, and said she had ever been his 
guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he 
would recommend me, when I came to a 
marrying-time of life, to marry such another 
woman, if such another woman could be 
found. 

196 



WILKINS MICAWBER 



As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber 
became still more friendly and convivial. 
Mrs. Micawber's spirits becoming elevated, 
too, we sang " Auld Lang Syne." When we 
came to " Here's a hand, my trusty frere," 
we all joined hands round the table; and 
when we declared we would " take a right 
gude willie-waught," and hadn't the least idea 
what it meant, we were really affected. 

In a word, I never saw anybody so thor- 
oughly jovial as Mr. Micawber was, down 
to the very last moment of the evening, when 
I took a hearty farewell of himself and his 
amiable wife. Consequently, I was not pre- 
pared, at seven o'clock next morning, to re- 
ceive the following communication, dated half- 
past nine in the evening; a quarter of an 
hour after I had left him. 

" My dear Young Friend, 

" The die is cast — all is over. Hiding the 
ravages of care with a sickly mask of mirth, 
I have not informed you, this evening, that 
there is no hope of the remittance! Under 
these circumstances, alike humiliating to en- 
dure, humiliating to contemplate, and humili- 
ating to relate, I have discharged the pecun- 
iary liability contracted at this establishment, 
by giving a note of hand, made payable four- 
teen days after date, at my residence, Penton- 
197 



WILKINS MICAWBER 



ville, Loridon. When it becomes due, it will 
not be taken up. The result is destruction. 
The bolt is impending, and the tree must 
fall. 

" Let the wretched man who now addresses 
you, my dear Copperfield, be a beacon to you 
through life. He writes with that intention, 
and in that hope. If he could think himself 
of so much use, one gleam of day might, by 
possibility, penetrate into the cheerless dun- 
geon of his remaining existence — though his 
longevity is, at present (to say the least of 
it), extremely problematical. 

" This is the last communication, my dear 
Copperfield, you will ever receive 
" From 
"The 
" Beggared Outcast, 

" WiLKINS MiCAWBER." 

I was so shocked by the contents of this 
heartrending letter, that I ran off directly 
towards the little hotel with the intention of 
taking it on my way to Doctor Strong's, and 
trying to soothe Mr. Micawber with a word 
of comfort. But, half-way there, I met the 
London coach with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber 
up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture of 
tranquil enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micaw- 
ber's conversation, eating walnuts out of a 
198 



MISS MIGGS 



paper bag, with a bottle sticking out of his 

breast-pocket. 

David Copperiield, ch. xi, xU, xvii, xxii, 

xxviiij xxxvij xxxix, xliii, xlix. Hi, liv, Ivii, 

Ixiii. 

Miss Miggs, the domestic servant of Mrs. 
Varden, "her chief aider and abettor, 
and at the same time the principal object of 
her wrath" She loved, unrequited, the 
'prentice Sim, Tappertit and follows and 
watches over him during the Gordon riots. 
On returning to Mrs. Varden she is ordered 
out of the* house and finally becomes female 
turnkey for the County Bridewell, " which she 
held till her decease more than thirty years 
afterwards, remaining single all the time." 

Miggs was a tall young lady, very much 
addicted to pattens in private life ; slender and 
shrewish, of a rather uncomfortable figure, 
and though not absolutely ill-looking, of a 
sharp and acid visage. As a general prin- 
ciple and abstract proposition, Miggs held 
the male sex to be utterly contemptible and 
unworthy of notice; to be fickle, false, base, 
sottish, inclined to perjury, and wholly un- 
deserving. When particularly exasperated 
against them (which, scandal said, was when 
Sim Tappertit slighted her most) she was 
accustomed to wish with great emphasis that 
199 



MOLLY 



the whole race of women could but die off, 
in order that the men might be brought to 
know the real value of the blessings by which 
they set so little store; nay, her feeling for 
her order ran so high, that she sometimes 
declared, if she could only have good security 
for a fair, round number — say ten thousand 
— of young virgins following her example, 
she would, to spite mankind, hang, drown, 
stab, or poison herself, with a joy past all 
expression. 
Barnaby Rudge, ch. vii, ix, xiii, xviii, xix, 

xxii, xxvii, xxxi, xxxvi, xxxix, xli, U, 

Ixiii, Ixx, Ixxi, Ixxx, Ixxxii. 

Molly, the housekeeper for Mr. Jaggers, 
a former mistress of Abel Magwitch — the 
mother of Estella adopted by Miss Havi- 
sham. She had been accused of the mur- 
der of a rival and was acquitted owing to 
the ingenuity of Mr. Jaggers, who was re- 
tained for her defence. 

She was rather tall, of a lithe nimble 
figure, extremely pale, with large faded eyes, 
and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot 
say whether any diseased affection of the 
heart caused her lips to be parted as if she 
were panting, and her face to bear a curious 
expression of suddenness and flutter; but I 
know that I had been to see Macbeth at the 



MOLLY 



theatre, a night or two before, and that her 
face looked to me as if it were all disturbed 
by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out 
of the Witches' caldron. . . . Years af- 
terwards, I made a dreadful likeness of that 
woman, by causing a face that had no other 
natural resemblance to it than it derived from 
flowing hair, to pass behind a bowl of flam- 
ing spirits in a dark room. . . . 

I observed that whenever she was in the 
room, she kept her eyes attentively on my 
guardian, and that she would remove her 
hands from any dish she put before him, 
hesitatingly, as if she dreaded his calling her 
back, and wanted him to speak when she was 
nigh, if he had anything to say. I fancied 
that I could detect in his manner a con- 
sciousness of this, and a purpose of always 
holding her in suspense. 

During the dinner Mr. Jaggers took his 
hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on 
the table. She brought her other hand from 
behind her, and held the two out side by 
side. The last wrist was much disfigured — 
deeply scarred and scarred across and across. 
When she held her hands out, she took her 
eyes from M'r. Jaggers, and turned them 
watchfully on every one of the rest of us in 
succession. 

" There's power here," said Mr. Jaggers, 

20I 



MISS MOWCHER 



coolly tracing out the sinews with his fore- 
finger. " Very few men have the power of 
wrist that this woman has. It's remarkable 
what mere force of grip there is in these 
hands. I have had occasion to notice many 
hands; but I never saw stronger in that re- 
spect, man's or woman's, than these." . . . 
Great Expectations, ch. xxiv, xkvi. 

Miss Mowcher, an exceedingly " volatile " 
person, who deals in cosmetics, and mani- 
cures and pedicures a variety of people in 
all stations of life. She is a great talker, and 
carries about a great deal of gossip, hut she 
is kind-hearted, honest, and true. She aided 
in the capture of Mr. Littimer when in dis- 
guise he was about to leave the country with 
the proceeds of his thefts. 

There came waddling round a sofa which 
stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of 
about forty or forty-five, with a very large 
head and face, a pair of roguish grey eyes, 
and such extremely little arms, that, to enable 
herself to lay a finger archly against her 
snub nose as she ogled Steerforth, she was 
obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay 
her nose against it. Her chin, which was 
what is called a double chin, was so fat that 
it entirely swallowed up the strings of her 
bonnet, bow and all. Throat she had none; 
202 



MISS MOWCHER 



waist she had none; legs she had none, worth 
mentioning; for though she was more than 
full-sized down to where her wa.st would 
have been, if she had had any, and though 
she terminated, as human bemgs g^^<^l^^Y^ 
in a pair of feet, she as so short that she stood 
at a common-sized chair as at a taWe, restmg 
a bag she carried on the seat This lady 
dressfd in an off-hand, easy style; brmg ng 
her nose and her forefinger together, with the 
difficulty I have described; standmg with her 
head necessarily on one side, arjd, with one 
of her sharp eyes shut up making an un- 
commonly knowing face; after oghng Steer- 
forth for a few moments, broke into a tor- 
rent of words. ... . ■ t„ 
I never beheld anything approaching to 
Miss Mowcher's wink, except Miss Mow- 
Sier's self-possession. She had a wonderful 
way too, when listening to what was said to 
her or when waiting for an answer to what 
she had said herself, of pausing with her 
head cunningly on one ^'df./""). °"". ^^^ 
turned up like a magpie's. Altogether I was 
lost in amazement, and sat staring at her 
quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of 
politeness. . . • . 

Miss Mowcher had quite an extensive con- 
nexion, and made herself useful to a variety 
of people in a variety of ways. Some people 



MR. EDWARD MURDSTONE 

trifled with her as a mere oddity, he said; 
but she was as shrewdly and sharply observ- 
ant as anyone he knew, and as long-headed as 
she was short-armed. He told me that what 
she had said of being here, and there, and 
everywhere, was true enough; for she made 
little darts into the provinces, and seemed to 
pick up customers everywhere, and to know 
everybody. I asked him what her disposition 
was: whether it was at all mischievous, and 
if her sympathies were generally on the right 
side of things : but, not succeeding in attract- 
ing his attention to these questions after two 
or three attempts, I forebore or forgot to 
repeat them. He told me instead, with much 
rapidity, a good deal about her skill, and her 
profits; and about her being a scientific cup- 
per, if I should ever have occasion for her 
service in that capacity. 
David Copperiield, ch. xxii, xxxii, Ixi. 

Mr. Edward Murdstone married David 
Copper-field's mother, subdued her gentle 
spirit and broke her heart. After her death he 
married a bright young woman, and by his 
dour treatment practically sent her out of her 
mind. 

He had that kind of shallow black eye — 
I want a better word to express an eye that 
has no depth in it to be looked into — which, 
204 



MR. EDWARD MURDSTONE 

when it is abstracted, seems, from some pe- 
culiarity of light, to be disfigured for a 
moment, at a time, by a cast. Several times 
when I glanced at him, I observed that ap- 
pearance with a sort of awe, and wondered 
what he as thinking about so closely. His 
hair and whiskers were blacker and thicker, 
looked at so near, than even I had given 
them credit for being. A squareness about 
the lower part of his face, and dotted indi- 
cation of the strong black beard he shaved 
close every day, reminded me of the wax- 
work that had travelled into our neighbor- 
hood some half-a-year before. This, his 
regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and 
black, and brown, of his complexion — con- 
found his complexion, and his memory ! — 
made me think him, in spite of my misgivings, 
a very handsome man. . . . 

The gloomy taint that was in the Murd- 
stone blood, darkened the Murdstone religion, 
which was austere and wrathful. I have 
thought, since, that its assuming that char- 
acter was a necessary consequence of Mr. 
Murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow 
him to let anybody off from the utmost weight 
of the severest penalties he could find any 
excuse for. 
David Copperiield, ch. ii-iv, viii-x, xiv, xxxiii, 

lix. 

20S 



MISS JANE MURDSTONE 

Miss Jane Murdstone, Edward Murd- 
stone's sister, harder and more severe in her 
treatment of young Copperiield, — "firm, they 
called it," — than her brother. Subsequently 
she became an inmate of Mr. Spenlow's house 
as a sort of duenna to Dora Spenlow. 

A gloomy-looking lady; dark, like her 
brother, whom she greatly resembled in face 
and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, 
nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, 
being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from 
wearing whiskers, she had carried them to 
that account. She brought with her two un- 
compromising hard black boxes, with her in- 
itials on the lids in hard brass nails. When 
she paid the coachman she took her money 
out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the 
purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon 
her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like 
a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such 
a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone 
was. . . . 

Almost the first remarkable thing I ob- 
served in Miss Murdstone was, her being 
constantly haunted by a suspicion that the 
servants had a man secreted somewhere on 
the premises. Under the influence of this 
delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the 
most untimely hours and scarcely ever opened 
the door of a dark cupboard without clapping 
206 



MISS JANE MURDSTONE 

it to again in the belief that she had got 
him. . . . 

Firmness was the grand quality on which 
both Mr. and Miss Murdstone took their stand. 
However I might have expressed my com- 
prehension of it at that time, if I had been 
called upon, I nevertheless did clearly com- 
prehend in my own way, that it was another 
name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, 
arrogant, devil's humour, that was in them 
both. The creed, as I should state it now, 
was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody 
in his world was to be so firm as Mr. Murd- 
stone; nobody else in his world was to be 
firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to 
his firmness. Miss Murdstone was an excep- 
tion. She might be firm, but only by relation- 
ship, and in an inferior and tributary de- 
gree. My mother was another exception. 
She might be firm, and must be; but only in 
bearing their firmness, and firmly believing 
there was no other firmness upon earth, . . . 

I do not doubt that she had a choice pleas- 
ure in exhibiting what she called for self- 
command, and her firmness, and her strength 
of mind, and her common sense, and the whole 
diabolical catalogue of her unamiable quali- 
ties. She was particularly proud of her turn 
for business; and she showed it now in re- 
ducing everything to pen and ink, and being 
207 



MR. NADGETT 



moved by nothing. All the rest of that day, 
and from morning to night afterwards, she 
sat at that desk; scratching composedly with 
a hard pen, speaking in the same imperturb- 
able whisper to everybody; never relaxing a 
muscle of her face, or softening a tone of 
her voice, or appearing with an atom of her 
dress astray. 

David CopperHeld, ch. iv, viii-x, xii, xiv, 
xxvi, XXX, xxxviij Ux. 

Mr. Nadgett, a private detective in the 
employ of The Anglo-Bengalee Insurance 
Co. He tracked the murderer of Montague 
Tegg by whom he was retained to shadow 
Jonas Chuzzlewit, among other duties. 

It was no virtue or merit in Nadgett that 
he transacted all his business secretly and in 
the closest confidence; for he was born to be 
a secret. He was a short, dried-up, withered, 
old man, who seemed to have secreted his very 
blood; for nobody would have given him 
credit for the possession of six ounces of it 
in his whole body. How he lived was a se- 
cret; where he lived was a secret; and even 
what he was, was a secret. In his musty old 
pocket-book he carried contradictory cards, in 
some of which he called himself a coal-mer- 
chant, in others a wine-merchant, in others 
a commission-agent, in others a collector, in 
208 



MR. NADGETT 



others an accountant: as if he really didn't 
know the secret himself. He was always 
keeping appointments in the City, and the 
other man never seemed to come. He would 
sit on 'Change for hours, looking at everybody 
who walked- in and out, and would do the 
like at Garraway's, and in other business cof- 
fee-rooms, in some of which he would be oc- 
casionally seen drying a very damp pocket- 
handkerchief before the fire, and still look- 
ing over his shoulder for the man who never 
appeared. He was mildewed, threadbare, 
shabby; always had flue upon his legs and 
back; and kept his linen so secret by button- 
ing up and wrapping over, that he might have 
had none — perhaps he hadn't. He carried 
one stained beaver glove, which he dangled 
before him by the forefinger as he walked or 
sat; but even its fellow was a secret. Some 
people said he had been a bankrupt, others 
that he had gone an infant into an ancient 
Chancery suit which was still depending, but 
it was all a secret. He carried bits of seal- 
ing-wax and a hieroglyphical old copper seal 
in his pocket, and often secretly indited let- 
ters in corner boxes of the trysting-places 
before mentioned; but they never appeared to 
go to anybody, for he would put them into a 
secret place in his coat, and deliver them to 
himself weeks afterwards, very much to his 
209 



RALPH NICKLEBY 



own surprise, quite yellow. He was that sort 
of man that if he had died worth a million 
of money, or had died worth twopence half- 
penny, everybody would have been perfectly 
satisfied, and would have said it was just as 
they expected. 

Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxvii, xxviii, xxxviii, 
xl, xli, xlvii, li. 

Ralph Nickleby, uncle to young Nicholas, 
a heartless usurer and miser. He ignores his 
family but when appealed to, after the death 
of his brother by his widow he set their chil- 
dren to work for their bread in the most 
menial way. He exposed his niece Kate, to 
the wiles and debauchery of his friends for 
his own gain, and tries in every way to hum- 
ble and ruin his nephew. But his cheating 
and illegal operations are found out in the end 
and at last he hangs himself in a Ht of frenzy, 
hatred and despair. The unfortunate Smike 
turns out to he his son. 

On the death of his father, Ralph Nickleby, 
who had been some time before placed in a 
mercantile house in London, applied himself 
passionately to his old pursuit of money-get- 
ting, in which he speedily became buried and 
absorbed. . . . 

He was not, strictly speaking, what you 
would call a merchant: neither was he a 

2IO 



RALPH NICKLEBY 



banker, nor an attorney, nor a special pleader, 
nor a notary. He was certainly not a trades- 
man, and still less could he lay any claim to 
the title of a professional gentleman; for it 
would have been impossible to mention any 
recognised profession to which he belonged. . 

He wore a bottle-green spencer over a blue 
coat; a white waistcoat, grey mixture panta- 
loons, and Wellington boots drawn over them ; 
the corner of a small-plaited shirt frill strug- 
gled out, as if insisting to show itself, from 
between his chin and the top button of his 
spencer, and the garment was not made low 
enough to conceal a long gold watch-chain, 
composed of a series of plain rings, which 
had its beginning at the handle of a gold re- 
peater in Mr. Nickleby's pocket, and its ter- 
mination in two little keys, one belonging to 
the watch itself, and the other to some patent 
padlock. He wore a sprinkling of powder 
upon his head, as if to make himself look 
benevolent; but if that were his purpose, he 
would perhaps have done better to powder his 
countenance also, for there was something in 
its very wrinkles, and in his cold restless eye, 
which seemed to tell of cunning that would 
announce itself in spite of him. . . . 

Stern, unyielding, dogged, and impenetrable, 
Ralph cared for nothing in life, or beyond it, 
save the gratification of two passions, avarice, 

211 



NEWMAN NOGGS 



the first and predominant appetite of his na- 
ture, and hatred, the second. Affecting to 
consider himself but a type of all humanity, 
he was at little pains to conceal his true 
character from the world in general, and in 
his own heart he exulted over and cherished 
every bad design as it had birth. The only 
scriptural admonition that Ralph Nickleby 
heeded, in the letter, was "know thyself." 
He knew himself well, and choosing to imagine 
that all mankind were cast in the same mould, 
hated them; for, though no man hates him- 
self, the coldest among us having too much 
self-love for that, yet most men unconsciously 
judge the world from themselves, and it will 
be very generally found that those who sneer 
habitually at human nature, and affect to de- 
spise it, are among its worst and least pleas- 
ant samples. 
Nicholas Nickleby, ch. i-iv, x, xix, xx, xxviii, 

xxxi, xxxiii, xxxv, xliv, xlv, xlvii, li, liv, 

Ivi, lix, Ix, Ixii. 

Newman Noggs, the clerk and drudge of 
Ralph Nickleby, who after having ruined him 
takes him into his employ. There no one can 
witness his degradation, and there he begins 
his work of finding out Nickleby's secrets. 
He at last has the satisfaction of unravelling 
his plots, and of telling him of his misdeeds 



NEWMAN NOGGS 



- face to face, man to man and like a man- 
He Js i g^eat friend to Nicholas and h^s 

famih' . , , 

He was a tall man of middle-age with two 
goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubi- 
cund nose, a cadaverous faee, and a rusty 
brown suit of elothes (if the term be aUow^ . 
able when they suited him not at all) much 
the worse for wear, very much too smal , and 
placed upon such a short allowance of but- 
tons that it was quite marvellous how he con- 
trived to keep them on. . . • 

He rarely spoke to anybody unless some- 
body spoke to him. ... and rubbed his hands 
slowly over each other, cracking the joints 
of his fingers, and squeezing them into all 
possible distortions. The incessant perform- 
ance of this routine on every occasion, and 
the communication of a fixed and pgid look 
to his unaffected eye, so as to make it um- 
form with the other, and to render it im- 
possible for anybody to determine where or 
at what he was looking, were two among he 
numerous peculiarities of Mr. Noggs, which 
struck an inexperienced observer at hrst 

"He s'at'u^on an uncommonly hard stc,ol 
(to which he had communicated a high polish 
by countless gettings off and on) in a species 
of butlers' pantry at the end of the passage 



NEWMAN NOGGS 



and always had a pen behind his ear when 

he answered the door. 

Ralph Nickleby gives this account of him: 

" Newman Noggs kept his horses and 
hounds once, and not many years ago either; 
but he squandered his money, invested it any- 
how, borrowed at interest, and in short made 
first a thorough fool of himself, and then a 
beggar. He took to drinking, and had a 
touch of paralysis, and then came here to 
borrow a pound, as in his better days I 
had done business with him. 

But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open 
the door and so forth, I took him out of 
charity, and he has remained with me ever 
since. He is a little mad, I think, but he 
is useful enough, poor creature — useful 
enough." 

The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add 
that Newman Noggs, being utterly destitute, 
served him for rather less than the usual 
wages of a boy of thirteen ; and likewise failed 
to mention in his hasty chronicle, that his 
eccentric taciturnity rendered him an es- 
pecially valuable person in a place where 
much business was done, of which it was 
desirable no mention should be made out of 
doors. 
Nicholas Nickleby, ch. ii-vi, xi, xiv-xvi, xxii, 

xxviii, xxxi, xxxiii, xxxiv, xl, xliv, xlvii, 

U, Hi, Ivii, lix, Ixiii, Ixv. 
214 



CHRISTOPHER NUBBLES 

Christopher Nubbles {called Kit), errand 
boy to little Nell's grandfather, much at- 
tached to little Nell. The old man sends him 
away because he thinks he has told of his 
gambling habits. He then secures employ- 
ment in the family of a Mr. Garland. 
Falsely accused of larceny by Sampson and 
Sally Brass, instigated by Quilp, he is ar- 
rested. His innocence is proved and he is set 
at liberty. He afterwards marries Barbara, 
the housemaid at Mr. Garland's. 

A shock-headed shambling awkward lad 
with an uncommonly wide mouth, very red 
cheeks, a turned-up nose, and certainly the 
most comical expression of face I ever saw. 
He stopped short at the door on seeing a 
stranger, twirled in his hand a perfectly round 
old hat without any vestige of a brim, and 
resting himself now on one leg and now on 
the other and changing them constantly, stood 
in the doorway, looking into the parlour with 
the most extraordinary leer I ever beheld. . . 

He had a remarkable manner of standing 
sideways as he spoke, and thrusting his head 
forward over his shoulder, as if he could not 
get at his voice without that accompanying 
action. . . . 

It must be specially observed in justice to 
poor Kit that he was by no means of a senti- 
mental turn, and perhaps had never heard that 
215 



MR. SETH PECKSNIFF 



adjective in all his life. He was only a soft- 
hearted grateful fellow, and had nothing gen- 
teel or polite about him; consequently in- 
stead of going home again in his grief to 
kick the children and abuse his mother (for 
when your finely strung people are out of 
sorts they must have everybody else unhappy 
likewise), he turned his thoughts to the vul- 
gar expedient of making them more comfort- 
able if he could. 
The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. i, Hi, vi, ix, xi, 

xiii, xiv, XX, xxii, xxxviii-xli, xlviii, Ivi- 

Ixi, Ixiii, Ixiv, IxvUi-lxxii. 

Mr. Seth Pecksniff, a cousin of old 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ostensibly an architect and 
land-surveyor. A thorough paced hypocrite 
liar, and secret drunkard. He takes young 
Martin Chuzzlewit into his house as a student, 
hut turns him away in contumely on a word 
from the elder Martin who had gone to live 
with him in order to test the man. John 
Westlock was another of his apprentices, 
Tom Pinch another, and to their work in his 
office he affixed his name and received both 
the pay and the honor, though he knew little 
or nothing of the profession. Just when he 
thought himself in full favor with old Martin 
Chuzzlewit his duplicity is fathomed to the 
very bottom, and his character completely re- 
216 



MR. SETH PECKSNIFF 



vealed. In shame, in drunkenness and misery 
he ended his days, remaining to the last the 
same canting hypocrite. 

Mr. Pecksniff was a moral man; a grave 
man, a man of noble sentiments, and speech: 
and he had had her christened Mercy. Mercy ! 
oh, what a charming name for such a pure- 
souled being as the youngest Miss Pecksniff ! 
Her sister's name was Charity. There was a 
good thing ! Mercy and Charity ! And Charity, 
with her fine strong sense, and her mild, yet 
not reproachful gravity,' was so well named, 
and did so well set off and illustrate her sis- 
ter ! What a pleasant sight was that, the 
contrast the> presented: to see each loved 
and loving one sympathising with, and de- 
voted to, and leaning on, and yet correcting 
and counter-checking, and, as it were, anti- 
doting, the other ! To behold each damsel, 
in her very admiration of her sister, setting 
up in business for herself on an entirely dif- 
ferent principle, and announcing no connex- 
ion with over-the-way, and if the quality of 
goods at that establishment don't please you, 
you are respectfully invited to favour me 
with a call ! And the crowning circumstance 
of the whole delightful catalogue was, that 
both the fair creatures were so utterly un- 
conscious of all this ! They had no idea of 
it. They no more thought or dreamed of it, 
217 



MR. SETH PECKSNIFF 



than Mr. Pecksniff did. Nature played them 
off against each other: they had no hand in 
it, the two Miss Pecksniffs. 

It has been remarked that Mr. Pecksniff 
was a moral man. So he was. Perhaps there 
never was a more moral man than Mr. Peck- 
sniff: especially in his conversation and cor- 
respondence. It as once said of him by a 
homely admirer, that he had a Fortunatus's 
purse of good sentiments in his inside. In 
this particular he was like the girl in the 
fairy tale, except that if they were not actual 
diamonds which fell from his lips, they were 
the very brightest paste, and shone prodi- 
giously. He was a most exemplary man : fuller 
of virtuous precept than a copy-book. Some 
people likened him to a direction-post, which 
is always telling the way to a place, and never 
goes there: but these were his enemies; the 
shadows cast by his brightness; that was all. 
His very throat was moral. You saw a good 
deal of it. You looked over a very low fence 
of white cravat (whereof no man had ever be- 
held the tie, for he fastened it behind), and 
there it lay, a valley between two jutting 
heights of collar, serene and whiskerless be- 
fore you. It seemed to say, on the part of 
Mr. Pecksniff, " There is no deception, ladies 
and gentlemen, all is peace: a holy calm per- 
vades me." So did his hair, just grizzled with 
218 



MR. SETH PECKSNIFF 



an iron-gray, which was all brushed off his 
forehead, and stood bolt upright, or slightly- 
drooped in kindred action with his heavy 
eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek 
though free from, corpulency. So did his 
manner, which was soft and oily. In a 
word, even his plain black suit, and state 
of widower, and dangling double eyeglass, all 
tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud, 
" Behold the moral Pecksniff ! " 

The brazen plate upon the door (which 
being Mr. Pecksniff's, could not lie) bore this 
inscription, " Pecksniff, Architect," to 
which Mr. Pecksniff, on his cards of busi- 
ness, added, " and Land Surveyor." In one 
sense, and only one, he may be said to have 
been a Land Surveyor on a pretty large 
scale, as an extensive prospect lay stretched 
out before the windows of his house. Of his 
architectural doings, . nothing was clearly 
known, except that he had never designed or 
built anything ; but it was generally understood 
that his knowledge of the science was almost 
awful in its profundity. 

Mr. Pecksniff's professional engagements, 
indeed, were almost, if not entirely, confined 
to the reception of pupils; for the collection 
of rents, with which pursuit he occasionally 
varied and relieved his graver toils, can hardly 
be said to be a strictly architectural employ- 
219 



HAM PEGGOTTY 



ment. His genius lay in ensnaring parents 
and guardians, and pocketing premiums. 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. ii-vi, vUi-xii, xviii-xx, 

xxiv, XXX, xxxi, xxxv, xliii, xliv, xlvii, liii, 

liv. 

Ham Peggotty, Little Emily's cousin 
and engaged to her, when Steerforth eloped 
with her. ' Years after in attempting to rescue 
some passengers from a wreck — among 
whom was Steerforth, he and Steerforth both 
were drowned and washed ashore together on 
the very scene of the hopes of the one and the 
devilish machinations of the other. 

He was a huge, strong fellow of six feet 
high, broad in proportion, and round-shoul- 
dered; but with a simpering boy's face and 
curly light hair that gave him quite a sheep- 
ish look. He was dressed in a canvas jacket, 
and a pair of such very stiff trousers that 
they would have stood quite as well alone, 
without any legs in them. And you couldn't 
so properly have said he wore a hat, as that 
he was covered in atop, like an old building, 
with something pitchy. 

David CopperReld, ch. ii, Hi, vii, x, xxi, xxii, 
xxx-xxxiii, xl, xlv, li, Iv. 

Mr. Solomon Te^l, an attorney in the In- 
solvent Court, to iuhpm the Welters went to 

'^20 



SAMUEL PICKWICK 



carry out their plan of getting Sam Weller 
sent to the debtors' prison in order to con- 
tinue his services to Mr, Pickwick. He sub- 
sequently assists in giving legal effect to the 
testamentary dispositions of Mrs. Weller, the 
elder. 

Mr. Solomon Pell was a fat flabby pale 
man, in a surtout which looked green one 
minute, and brown the next, with a velvet 
collar of the same chameleon tints. His fore- 
head was narrow, his face wide, his head 
large, and his nose all on one side, as if Na- 
ture, indignant with the propensities she ob- 
served in him in his birth, had given it an 
angry tweak which it had never recovered. 
Being short-necked and asthmatic, however, 
he respired principally through this feature; 
so, perhaps, what it wanted in ornament it 
made up in usefulness. 
Pickwick Papers, ch. xliii, Iv. 

Samuel Pickwick, the founder of the 
Pickwick Club, and the leading character in 
The Pickwick Papers, After many vicissi- 
tudes, including his prosecution for breach of 
promise of marriage by Mrs. Bardell and his 
imprisonment for refusing to pay the dam- 
ages, Mr. Pickwick withdraws from the Club, 
zuhich is consequently dissolved, and settles 
down at Dulwich,— after seeing all his 

221 



SAMUEL PICKWICK 



friends happily married, — with his devoted 
servant, Sam Weller, whose wife becomes 
Mr. Pickwick's Housekeeper. 

A casual observer might possibly have re- 
marked nothing extraordinary in the bald 
head, and circular spectacles, which were in- 
tently turned towards his (the secretary's) 
face, during the reading of the above resolu- 
tions. To those who knew that the gigantic 
brain of Pickwick was working beneath that 
forehead, and that the beaming eyes of Pick- 
wick were twinkling behind those glasses, the 
sight was indeed an interesting one. There 
sat the man who had traced to their source 
the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated 
the scientific world with his Theory of Tittle- 
bats, as calm and unmoved as the deep waters 
of the one on a frosty day, or as a solitary 
specimen of the other in the inmost recesses 
of an earthen jar. And how much more in- 
teresting did the spectacle become, when, 
starting into full life and animation, as a 
simultaneous call for " Pickwick " burst from 
his followers, that illustrious man slowly 
mounted into the Windsor chair, on which he 
had been previously seated, and addressed the 
club himself had founded. What a study for 
an artist did that exciting scene present! 
The eloquent Pickwick, with one hand grace- 
fully concealed behind his coat tails, and the 

222 



RUTH PINCH 



other waving in air to assist his glowing 
declamation: his elevated position revealing 
those tights and gaiters, which had they 
clothed an ordinary man, might have passed 
without observation, but which, when Pick- 
wick clothed them — if we may use the ex- 
pression — inspired involuntary awe and re- 
spect; surrounded by the men who had 
volunteered to share the perils of his travels, 
and who were destined to participate in the 
glories of his discoveries. 

The Pickwick Papers, ch. i-xxviii, xxx-xxxii, 
xxxiv-xxxvii, xxxix-xlviii, l-lvi. 

Ruth Pinch, Tom Pinch's sister, governess 
in a wealthy and vulgar brass and copper 
founder's family in Clerkenwell, where she 
suffered ignominious treatment. When her 
brother goes to London he takes her away 
and they set up housekeeping together. She 
afterwards becomes the izvdfe of Tom's old 
friend John Westlock. 

She had a good face; a very mild and pre- 
possessing face; and a pretty little figure — 
slight and short, but remarkable for its neat- 
ness. There was something of her brother, 
much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness 
of manner, and in her look of timid trustful- 
ness. . . . 

Pleasant Httle Ruth! Cheerful, tidy, bust- 
223 



RUTH PINCH 



ling, quiet little Ruth ! No doll's house 
ever yielded greater delight to its young mis- 
tress, than little Ruth derived from her glo- 
rious dominion over the triangular parlour and 
the two small bed-rooms. 

To be Tom's housekeeper. What dignity! 
Housekeeping, upon the commonest terms, as- 
sociated itself with elevated responsibilities of 
all sorts and kinds; but housekeeping for 
Tom, implied the utmost complication of 
grave trusts and mighty charges. Well might 
she take the keys out of the little chiffonier 
which held the tea and sugar; and out of the 
two little damp cupboards down by the fire- 
place, where the very black beetles got 
mouldy, and had the shine taken out of their 
backs by envious mildew; and jingle them 
upon a ring before Tom's eyes when he came 
down to breakfast ! Well might she, laugh- 
ing musically, put them up in that blessed 
little pocket of hers with a merry pride ! For 
it was such a grand novelty to be mistress 
of anything, that if she had been the most re- 
lentless 'and despotic of all little housekeepers, 
she might have pleaded just that much for 
her excuse, and have been honourably ac- 
quitted. 

So far from being despotic, however, there 
was a coyness about her very way of pour- 
ing out the tea, which Tom quite revelled in. 
224 



TOM PINCH 



And when she asked him what he would hke 
to have for dinner, and faltered out " chops " 
as a reasonably good suggestion after their 
last night's successful supper, Tom grew 
quite facetious and rallied her desperately. 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. ix, xxxvi, xxxvii, 
xxxix, xl, xlvi, xlviii, I, liii-liv, 
Tom Pinch, assistant to Pecksniff, in 
whom he had unbounded faith and trust. But 
his eyes are open at last to see him as the 
consummate hypocrite he is. He befriends 
Mary Graham, whom he secretly loves. 
Pecksniff, his villainy found out by Tom, dis- 
charges him. He makes his way to London 
and finds his friend John Westlock. Old Mar- 
tin Chuszlewit finds him out and secretly be- 
friends him, revealing the identity of his 
benefactor later. Tom rescues his sister from 
her position as governess, where she is cru- 
elly and tyrannically treated, and they keep 
house together — very happily. 

An ungainly, awkward-looking man, ex- 
tremely short-sighted, and prematurely bald 
availed himself of this permission; [he] stood 
hesitating, with the door in his hand He 
was far from handsome certamly; and was 
drest in a snuff-coloured suit, of an uncouth 
make at the best, which, being shrunken with 
long wear, was twisted and tortured into all 
225 



MRS. PIPCHIN 



kinds of odd shapes; but notwithstanding his 
attire, and his clumsy figure, which a great 
stoop in his shoulders, and a ludicrous habit 
he had of thrusting his head forward, by no 
means redeemed, one would not have been 
disposed to consider him a bad fellow by any 
means. He was perhaps about thirty, but he 
might have been almost any age between six- 
teen and sixty: being one of those strange 
creatures who never decline into an ancient 
appearance, but look their oldest when they 
are very young, and get it over at once. 
Martin Chuzzlennt, ch. ii, v-vU, ix, xii, xiv, xx, 

xxiv, XXX, xxxi, xxxvi-xl, xlv, xlvi, xlviii, 

I, Hi, liii-Hv. 

Mrs. Pipchin lived at Brighton, and Paul 
Dombey with his sister and nurse zvas sent to 
board in her house. Afterwards she became 
housekeeper to Mr. Dombey. 

Mrs. Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured, 
ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, 
with a mottled face, like bad marble, a hook 
nose, and a hard grey eye, that looked as if 
it might have been hammered at on an anvil 
without sustaining any injury. Forty years 
at least had elapsed since the Peruvian mines 
had been the death of Mr. Pipchin; but his 
relict still wore black bombazeen, of such a 
lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade, that gas 
226 



MRS. PIPCHIN 



itself couldn't light her up after dark, and hei? 
presence was a quencher to any number of 
candles. She was generally spoken of as " a 
great manager " of children ; and the secret 
of her management was, to give them every- 
thing that they didn't like, and nothing that 
they did — which was found to sweeten their 
dispositions very much. She was such a h^i- 
ter old lady, that one was tempted to believe 
there had been some mistake in the applica- 
tion of the Peruvian machinery, and that all 
her waters of gladness and milk of human 
kindness had been pumped out dry, instead of 
the mines. . . . 

Mrs. Pipchin appeared to have something 
of the same odd kind of attraction towards 
Paul, as Paul had towards her. She would 
make him move his chair to her side of the 
fire, instead of sitting opposite; and there he 
would remain in a nook between Mrs. Pip- 
chin and the fender, with all the light of his 
little face absorbed into the black bombazeen 
drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of 
her countenance, and peering at the hard grey 
eye, until Mrs. Pipchin was sometimes fain to 
shut it, on pretence of dozing. Mrs. Pipchin 
had an old black cat, who generally lay coiled 
upon the centre foot of the fender, purring 
egotistically, and winking at the fire until the 
contracted pupils of his eyes were like two 
227 



PHILIP PIRRIP 



notes of admiration. The good old lady 
might have been — not to record it disrespect- 
fully — a witch, and Paul and the cat her two 
familiars, as they all sat by the fire together. 
It would have been quite in keeping with the 
appearance of the party if they had all sprung 
up the chimney in a high wind one night, and 
never been heard of any more. 
Dombey and Son, ch. viii, xi, xii, xlv, xvi, 
xlii-xliv, xlvii, li, lix. 

Philip Pirrip {called Pip) was "brought 
up by hand'' by his sister Mrs. Joe Gargery, 
who does not treat him over kindly. He is 
apprenticed to his brother-in-law Joe the 
blacksmith — and they become " ever the best 
of friends." Before he is out of his time 
Mr. Jaggers comes to tell him of his good 
fortune and his ''great expectations." He 
goes to London and looks down upon his hum- 
ble friends of his early days. When Pip's 
fortune vanishes into thin air he has a long 
illness and his old friend Joe comes to nurse 
him. He recovers, compounds with his cred- 
itors, becomes a clerk, and later a partner, in 
a merchant's establishment and at last mar- 
ries Estella {the protegee of Hiss Havisham), 
who is now a widow. (See Magwitch.) 

My father's family name being Pirrip, and 
my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue 
228 



PHILIP PIRRIP 



could make of both names nothing longer or 
more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself 
Pip, and came to be called Pip. 

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, 
on the authority of his tombstone and my sis- 
ter — Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the 
blacksmith. As I never saw my father or 
my mother, and never saw any likeness of 
either of them (for their days were long be- 
fore the days of photographs), my first fan- 
cies regarding what they were like were un- 
reasonably derived from their tombstones. 
The shape of the letters on my father's gave 
me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, 
dark man, with curly black hair. From the 
character and turn of the inscription, ''Also 
Georgiana Wife of the Above" I drew a 
childish conclusion that my mother was 
freckled and sickly. To five little stone loz- 
enges, each about a foot and a half long, 
which were arranged in a neat row beside 
their grave, and were sacred to the memory 
of five little brothers of mine — who gave up 
trying to get a living exceedingly early in 
that universal struggle — I am indebted for 
a belief I religiously entertained that they had 
all been born on their backs with their hands 
in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken 
them out in this state of existence. . . . 

[Pip grew up to be] a good fellow, with im- 
229 



PHILIP PIRRIP 



petuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffi- 
dence, action and dreaming curiously mixed 
in him." ... 

I went out and joined Herbert. Within a 
month, I had quitted England, and within 
two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., 
and within four months I assumed my first 
undivided responsibility. [For] Herbert had 
gone away to marry Clara, and I was left in 
sole charge of the Eastern Branch until he 
brought her back. 

Many a year went round, before I was a 
partner in the House; but, I lived happily 
with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, 
and paid my debts, and maintained a con- 
stant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. . . 
I must not leave it to be supposed that we 
were ever a great House, or that we made 
mints of money. We were not in a grand 
way of business, but we had a good name, and 
worked for our profits, and did very well. 
We owed so much to Herbert's ever cheer- 
ful industry and readiness, that I often won- 
dered how I had conceived that old idea of 
his inaptitude, until I was one day enlightened 
by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude 
had never been in him at all, but had been 
in me. 

Great Expectations, ch. i to end \_as the hero 
is the relator of the story the reference can 
only he to the whole volume'], 
230 



HERBERT POCKET 



Herbert Pocket, a warm friend of Pip, 
son of Matthew Pocket, also a young man of 
"great expectations" of becoming wealthy. 
Whew Pip comes into his good fortune he 
secretly helps Herbert to a position in the 
house of Clarriker and Co., in which he sub- 
sequently becomes partner. The secret is not 
discovered for many years, but Pip has his 
reward, for when later on he was in need, 
Clarriker & Co. gave him a position and he 
also rose to be a partner. Herbert married 
Clara Barley, the pretty daughter of old Bill 
Barley, a drunken, bed-ridden, gouty old 
purser whom she tended with the greatest 
care. 

Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way 
with him that was very taking. I had never 
seen any one then, and I have never seen any 
one since, who more strongly expressed to 
me, in every look and tone, a natural inca- 
pacity to do anything secret and mean. 
There was something wonderfully hopeful 
about his general air, and something that at 
the same time whispered to me he would 
never be very successful or rich. I don't 
know how this was. . . . 

A pale young gentleman, and had a cer- 
tain conquered languor about him in the 
midst of his spirits and briskness, that did not 
seem indicative of natural strength. He had 
231 



HERBERT POCKET 



not a handsome face, but it was better than 
handsome: being extremely amiable and 
cheerful. His figure was a little ungainly. 
. . . I asked him^ in the course of conver- 
sation, what he was ? He replied, " A cap- 
italist — an Insurer of Ships." I suppose he 
saw me glancing about the room in search of 
some tokens of Shipping, or capital, for he 
added, " In the City." . . . 

" I shall not rest satisfied with merely em; 
ploying my capital in insuring ships. I shall 
buy up some good Life Assurance shares, and 
cut into the Direction. I shall also do a lit- 
tle in the mining way. None of these things 
will interfere with my chartering a few thou- 
sand tons on my own account. I think I 
shall trade," said he, leaning back in his chair, 
" to the East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, 
dyes, drugs, and precious woods. It's an in- 
teresting trade. I think I shall trade, also," 
said he, putting his thumbs in his waistcoat 
pockets, " to the West Indies, for sugar, to- 
bacco, and rum. Also to Ceylon, especially 
for elephants' tusks." Quite overpowered by 
the magnificence of these transactions, I asked 
him where the ships he insured mostly traded 
to at present? 

" I haven't begun insuring yet," he re- 
plied. " I am looking about me. Yes. I am 
in a counting-house, and looking about me; 
232 



HERBERT POCKET 



it doesn't pay me anything and I have to 
keep myself." 



This certainly had not a profitable appear- 
ance, and I shook my head as if I would im- 
ply that it would be difficult to lay by much 
accumulative capital from such a source of 
income. 

" But the thing is," said Herbert Pocket, 
" that you look about you. That's the grand 
thing. You are in a counting-house, you 
know, and you look about you." 

Every morning, with an air ever new, Her- 
bert went into the City to look about him. 
I often paid him a visit in the dark back-room 
in which he consorted with an ink- jar, a hat- 
peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an almanack, 
a desk and stool, and a ruler; and I do not 
remember that I ever saw him do anything 
else but look about him. If we all did what 
we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert 
did, we might live in a Republic of the Vir- 
tues. He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, 
except at a certain hour of every afternoon 
to " go to Lloyd's " — in observance of a cere- 
mony of seeing his principal, I think. He 
never did anything else in connection with 
Lloyd's that I could find out, except come 
back again. When he felt his case unusually 
serious, and that he positively must find an 
opening, he would go on 'Change at a busy 



MATTHEW POCKET 



time, and walk in and out, in a kind of 
gloomy country dance figure, among the as- 
sembled magnates. " For," says Herbert to 
me, coming home to dinner on one of those 
special occasions, " I find the truth to be, 
Handel, that an opening won't come to one, 

but one must go to it so I have been." 

Great Expectations, ch. xi, xxi-xxviii, xxx, 

xxxi, xxxiv, xxxvi-xliii, xlv-xlvii, xlix, I, 

liii-lv, Iviii. 

Matthew Pocket, the father of Herbert 
Pocket, with whom Pip studied for some 
time; a relative of Miss Havisham. 

He had rather a perplexed expression of 
face, with his hair disordered on his head 
as if he didn't quite see his way to putting 
anything straight. . . . 

He had been educated at Harrow and at 
Cambridge, where he had distinguished him- 
self; but when he had had the happiness 
of marrying Mrs. Pocket very early in life, 
he had impaired his prospects and taken up 
the calling of a Grinder. After grinding a 
number of dull blades — of whom it was re- 
markable -that their fathers, when influential, 
were always going to help him to preferment, 
but always forgot to do it when the blades 
had left the Grindstone — he had wearied of 
that poor work and had come to London. 
234 



THE HON. ELIJAH POGRAM 

Here, after gradually failing in loftier hopes, 
he had " read " with divers who had lacked 
opportunities or neglected them, and had re- 
furbished divers others for special occasions, 
and had turned his acquirements to the ac- 
count of literary compilation and correction, 
and on such means, added to some very mod- 
erate private resources, still maintained the 
house I saw. . . . 

Mr. Pocket was a most delightful lecturer 
on domestic economy, and his treatises on the 
management of children and servants were 
considered the very best text-books on those 
themes. . . . 

Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giv- 
ing most excellent practical advice, and for 
having a clear and sound perception of things 
and a highly judicious mind, I had some no- 
tion in rhy heart-ache of begging him to ac- 
cept my confidence. But happening to look 
up at Mrs. Pocket as she sat reading her book 
of dignities after prescribing Bed as a sov- 
ereign remedy for baby, I thought — Well, — 
No, I wouldn't. 

Great Expectations, ch. xxii-xxiv, xxxiU, 
xxxix. 

The Honorable Elijah Pogram, the au- 
thor of " The Pogram Defiance '' " which rose 
so much con-test and preju-dice in Europe" 
235 



MR. POTT 



— " one of the master minds of the country " 
whose acquaintance Martin Chuzzlewit made 
in America. He was a Member of Congress. 
He had straight black hair, parted up the 
middle of his head, and hanging down upon 
his coat; a little fringe of hair upon his chin; 
wore no neckcloth; a white hat; a suit of 
black, long in the sleeves, and short in the 
legs; soiled brown stockings, and laced shoes. 
His complexion, naturally muddy, was ren- 
(dered muddier by too strict an economy of 
soap and water; and the same observation 
will apply to the washable part of his attire, 
which he might have changed with comfort 
to himself, and gratification to his friends. 
He was about five-and-thirty ; was crushed 
and jammed up in a heap, under the shade of 
a large green cotton umbrella; and ruminated 
over his tobacco-plug like a cow. 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxxiv. 

Mr. Pott, editor of the Eatanswill Gazette. 

A tall, thin man, with a sandy-coloured 
head inclined to baldness, and a face in which 
solemn importance was blended with a look 
of unfathomable profundity. He was dressed 
in a long brown surtout, with a black cloth 
waistcoat, and drab trousers. A double eye- 
glass dangled at his waistcoat: and on his 
head he wore a very low-crowned hat with a 
236 



MISS PROSS 



broad brim. The new comer was introduced 
to Mr. Pickwick as Mr. Pott, the editor of 
the Eatanswill Gazette. After a few pre- 
liminary remarks, Mr. Pott turned round to 
Mr. Pickwick, and said with solemnity — 

" This contest excites great interest in the 
metropolis, Sir?" 

"I believe it does," said Mr. Pickwick. 
"To which I have reason to know," said 
Pott, looking towards Mr. Perker for cor- 
roboration,— " to which I have reason to 
know my article of last Saturday in some de- 
gree contributed." 

" Not the least doubt of that," said the little 
man. . ^^ 

"The press is a mighty engine, Sir,' said 

Pott. 

Mr. Pickwick yielded his fullest assent to 
the proposition. 
Pickwick Papers, ch. xiii, xv, xviii. 

Miss Pross, sister of Solomon Pross (John 
Bar sad), Lucie Manette's maid, a tough, 
loyal, and faithful creature. In concealing 
the last night of the Manettes to England 
she is involved in a struggle with Madame 
Defarge — who attacks her with a pistol. 
Miss Pross strikes it at the moment of Uring 
and the charge kills the would-be murderess. 
Miss Pross closely veiled succeeds in escap- 
ing to England in safet'^. 

2-i7 



MISS PROSS 



A wild-looking woman, whom even in his 
agitation, Mr, Lorry observed to be all of a 
red colour, and to have red hair, and to be 
dressed in some extraordinary tight-fitting 
fashion, and to have on her head a most won- 
derful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden meas- 
ure, and good measure too, — or a great Stil- 
ton cheese. . . . 

Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit 
wild, and red, and grim, taking off her dar- 
ling's bonnet when she came up-stairs, and 
touching it up with the ends of her handker- 
chief, and blowing the dust off it, and fold- 
ing her mantle ready for laying by, and 
smoothing her rich hair with as much pride 
as she could possibly have taken in her own 
hair if she had been the vainest and hand- 
somest of women. Her darling was a pleasant 
sight too^ embracing her and thanking her, 
and protesting against her taking so much 
trouble for her — which last she only dared 
to do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, 
would have retired to her own chamber and 
cried. . . . 

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very 
jealous, but he also knew her by this time to 
be, beneath the surface of her eccentricity, 
one of those unselfish creatures — found only 
among women — who will, for pure love and 
admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to 
238 



UNCLE PUMBLECHOOK 



youth when they have lost it, to beauty that 
they never had, to accompHshments that they 
were never fortunate enough to gain, to 
bright hopes that never shone upon their own 
sombre lives. He knew enough of the world 
to know that there is nothing in it better 
than the faithful service of the heart; so 
rendered and and so free from any mercenary 
taint, he had such an exalted respect for it, 
that in the retributive arrangements made by 
his own mind — we will make such arrange- 
ments, more or less — he stationed Miss 
Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than 
many ladies immeasurably better got up both 
by Nature and Art, who had balances- at Tell- 
son's. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, ch. iv; Book 

II, ch. vi, X, xvii-xix, xxi; Book III, ch. 

a, Hi, vii, via, xiv. 

Uncle Pumblechook, uncle to Joe Gar- 
gery — a well-to-do cornchandler and seeds- 
man. He is the torment of Pip's life, dis- 
cussing his character and prospects in the 
boy's presence, posing always as the architect 
of the lad's fortunes, and when Pip lat'^r on is 
reduced to poverty becomes as ostentatiously 
compassionate and forgiving as he had been 
servile formerly. 

A large, hard-breathing, middle-aged, slow 
239 



UNCLE PUMBLECHOOK 



man, with a mouth like a fish; dull star- 
ing eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on 
his head, so that he looked as if he had just 
been all but choked, and had that moment 
come to. . . . Mr. Pumblechook wore 
corduroys, and so did his shopman; and some- 
how, there was a-general air and flavour about 
the corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, 
and a general air and flavour about the seeds, 
so much in the nature of corduroys, that I 
hardly knew which was which. The same op- 
portunity served me for noticing that Mr. 
Pumblechook appeared to conduct his busi- 
ness by looking across the street at the sad- 
dler, who appeared to transact his business 
by keeping his eye on the coach-maker, who 
appeared to get on in life by putting his hands 
in his pockets and contemplating the baker, 
who in his turn folded his arms and stared at 
the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned 
at the chemist. . . . 

Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight 
o'clock in the parlour behind the shop, while 
the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch 
of bread-and-butter on a sack of peas in the 
front premises. I considered Mr. Pumble- 
chook wretched company. Besides being pos- 
sessed by my sister's idea that a mortifying 
and penitential character ought to be imparted 
to my diet — besides giving me as much 
240 



DANIEL QUILP 



crumb as possible in combination with as little 
butter, and putting such a quantity of warm 
water into my milk that it would have been 
more candid to have left the milk out alto- 
gether — his conversation consisted of noth- 
ing but arithmetic. On my politely bidding 
him Good morning, he said, pompously, 
*' Seven times nine, boy ? " And how should 
/ be able to answer, dodged in that way, in 
a strange place, on an empty stomach ! I was 
hungry, but before I had swallowed a mor- 
sel, he began a running sum that lasted all 
through the breakfast. " Seven ? " " And 
four ? " " And eight ? " " And six ? " " And 
two ? " " And ten ? " And so on. And after 
each figure was disposed of, it was as much 
as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the 
next came ; while he sat at his ease guessing 
nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if 
I may be allowed the expression) a gorging 
and gormandising manner. 
Great Expectations, ch. iv-ix, xiii, xv, xix, 
XXXV, Iviii. 

Daniel Quilp, a repulsive character, the in- 
carnation of deviltry and wickedness. He 
treats his wife, a pretty little, mild-spoken, 
blue-eyed woman, with fiendish cruelty and is 
ready for any criminal enterprise. At length, 
when pursued by the police for his various 
241 



DANIEL QUILP 



crimes, he falls into the Thames and is 
drowned. His wife comes into his ill-gotten 
gains and marries again, this time happily. 
An elderly man of remarkably hard features 
and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature 
as to be quite a dwarf, though his head and 
face were large enough for the body of a 
giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and 
cunning; his mouth and chin, bristly with the 
stubble of a coarse hard beard; and his com- 
plexion was one of that kirld which never 
looks clean or wholesome. But what added 
most to the grotesque expression of his face, 
was a ghastly smile, which, appearing to be 
the mere result of habit and to have no con- 
nexion with any mirthful or complacent feel- 
ing, -constantly revealed the few discoloured 
fangs that were yet scattered in his mouth, 
and gave him the aspect of a panting dog. 
His dress consisted of a large high-crowned 
hat, a worn dark suit, a pair of capacious 
shoes, and a dirty white neckerchief suffi- 
ciently limp and crumpled to disclose the 
greater portion of his wiry throat. Such hair 
as he had, was of a grizzled black, cut short 
and straight upon his temples, and hanging in 
a frowzy fringe about his ears. His hands, 
which weie of a rough coarse grain, were very 
dirty; his finger-nails were crooked, long, and 
yellow. . . . 

242 



DANIEL QUILP 



The creature appeared quite horrible with 
his monstrous head and little body, as he 
rubbed his hands slowly round and round, and 
round again — with something fantastic even 
in his manner of performing this slight ac- 
tion — and, dropping his shaggy brows and 
cocking his chin in the air, glanced upwards 
with a stealthy look of exultation that an imp 
might have copied and appropriated to him- 
self. . . . 

Mr. and Mrs. Quilp resided on Tower Hill; 
and in her bower on Tower Hill Mrs. Quilp 
was left to pine the absence of her lord, when 
he quitted her. 

Mr. Quilp could scarcely be said to be of 
any particular trade or calling, though his 
pursuits were diversified and his occupations 
numerous. He collected the rents of whole 
colonies of filthy streets and alleys by the 
waterside, advanced money to the seamen and 
petty officers of merchant vessels, had a share 
in the ventures of divers mates of East In- 
diamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the 
very nose of the Custom House, and made 
appointments on 'Change with men in glazed 
hats and round jackets pretty well every day. 
On the Surrey side of the river was a small 
rat-infested dreary yard called " Quilp's 
Wharf," in which were a little wooden count- 
ing-house burrowing all awry in the dust as 
243 



RIGAUD 



if it had fallen from the clouds and ploughed 
into the ground; a few fragments of rusty 
anchors; several large iron rings; some piles 
of rotten wood ; and two or three heaps of old 
sheet copper, crumpled, cracked, and battered. 
On Quilp's Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a ship- 
breaker, yet to judge from these appearances 
he must either have been a ship-breaker on 
a very small scale, or have broken his ships 
up very small indeed. 
The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. iii-vi, ix, xi-xiii, 

xxiii, xxvii, xxx, xli, xlviii-U, Ix, Ixii, IxiVy 

Ixvii, Ixxiii. 

RiGAUD, alias Blandois, alias Lagnier, a 
scoundrel with a certain polish of manners, a 
true chevalier d'industrie. He murdered his 
wife — was put in jail, and escaped to Eng- 
land. He gained a knowledge of Mrs. Clen- 
man's frauds and tried to extort a large sum 
of hush money. While waiting in her house 
for her return he is suddenly killed by the col- 
lapse of the building. 

He was waiting to be fed; looking side- 
ways through the bars, that he might see the 
further down the stairs, with much of the ex- 
pression of a wild beast in similar expecta- 
tion. But his eyes, too close together, were 
not so nobly set in his head as those of the 
king of beasts are in his, and they were sharp 
244 



RIGAUD 



rather than bright' — pointed weapons with 
little surface to betray them. They had no 
depth or change; they glittered, and they 
opened and shut. So far, and waiving their 
use to himself, a clockmaker could have made 
a better pair. He had a hook nose, handsome 
after its kind, but too high between the eyes, 
by probably just as much as his eyes were 
too near to one another. For the rest, he was 
large and tall in frame, had thin lips, where 
his thick moustache showed them at all, and 
a quantity of dry hair, of no definable col- 
our, in its shaggy state, but shot with red. 
The hand with which he held the grating 
(seamed all over the back with ugly scratches 
newly healed), was unusually small and 
plump; would have been unusually white, but 
for the prison grime. ... 

"I am a cosmopolitan gentleman. I own 
no particular country. My father was Swiss 
— Canton de Vaud. My mother was French 
by blood, English by birth. I myself was 
born in Belgium. I am a citizen of the 
world." . . . 

" Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I 
have seen the world. I have lived here, and 
lived there, and lived like a gentleman every- 
where. I have been treated and respected as 
a gentleman universally. If you try to preju- 
dice me, by making out that I have lived by 
245 



RIGAUD 



my wits — how do your lawyers live — your 
politicians — your intriguers — your men of 
the Exchange ? " 

In dry clothes and scented linen, with 
sleeked hair, a great ring on each forefinger, 
and a massive show of watch-chain, Mr. Blan- 
dois waiting for his dinner, lolling on a win- 
dow-seat with his knees drawn up, looked 
(for all the difference in the setting of the 
jewel) fearfully and wonderfully like a cer- 
tain Monsieur Rigaud who had once so waited 
for his breakfast, lying on the stone ledge of 
the iron grating of a cell in a villanous dun- 
geon at Marseilles. 

His greed at dinner, too, was closely in 
keeping with the greed of Monsieur Rigaud 
at breakfast. His avaricious manner of col- 
lecting all the eatables about him, and devour- 
ing some with his eyes, while devouring oth- 
ers with his jaws, was the same manner. His 
utter disregard of other people, as shown in his 
way of tossing the little womanly toys of furni- 
ture about, flinging favourite cushions under 
his boots for a softer rest, and crushing delicate 
coverings with his big body and his great 
black head, had the same brute selfishness at 
the bottom of it. The softly moving hands 
that were so busy among the dishes had the 
old wicked facility of the hands that had 
clung to the bars. And when he could eat 
246 



BARNABY RUDGE 



no more, and sat sucking his delicate fingers 
one by one and wiping them on a cloth, there 
wanted nothing but the substitution of vine- 
leaves to finish the picture. 

On this man, with his moustache going up 
and his nose coming down in that most evil 
of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking 
as if they belonged to his dyed hair, and had 
had their natural power of reflecting light 
stopped by some similar process, Nature, al- 
ways true, and never working in vain, had 
set the mark, Beware ! It was not her fault, 
if the warning were fruitless. She is never 
to blame in any such instance. 
Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. i, xi, xxix, xxx; 
Book II, ch. i, Hi, vi, vii, ix, x, xvii, xx, 
xxii, xxiii, xxviii, xxx, xxxi, xxxiii. 

Barnaby Rudge, a wild waif who picked 
up a living anyhow and wandered anywhere 
with a raven — " Grip " — for constant com- 
panion. His father was the murderer of 
Reuben Haredale, and although the hoy was 
horn with a horror of the sight of hlood, when 
he was overtaken hy a moh of the Gordon 
rioters he eagerly joined in their work of pil- 
lage and destruction. His strength and agil- 
ity made him a valuable accession and he 
fought until he was overpowered, taken pris- 
oner and condemned to death. On the eve of 
247 



BARNABY RUDGE 



his execution a pardon was secured for him. 
He is one of the most powerful and vivid 
characters ever portrayed in fiction. 

He was about three-and-twenty years old, 
and though rather spare^ of a fair height and 
strong make. His hair, of which he had a 
great profusion, was red, and hanging in dis- 
order about his face and shoulders, gave to 
his restless looks an expression quite un- 
earthly — enhanced by the paleness of his 
complexion, and the glassy lustre of his large 
protruding eyes. Startling as his aspect was, 
the features were good, and there was some- 
thing even plaintive in his wan and haggard 
aspect. But" the absence of the soul is far 
more terrible in a living man than in a dead 
one; and in this unfortunate being its noblest 
powers were wanting. 

His dress was of green, clumsily trimmed 
here and there — apparently by his own hands 
— with gaudy lace; brightest where the cloth 
was most worn and soiled, and poorest where 
it was at the best. A pair of tawdry ruffles 
dangled at his wrists, while his throat was 
nearly bare. He had ornamented his hat with 
a cluster of peacock's feathers, but they were 
limp and broken, and now trailed negligently 
down his back. Girded to his side was the 
steel hilt of an old sword without blade or 
scabbard; and some parti-coloured ends of 
248 



BARNABY RUDGE 



ribands and poor glass toys completed the 
ornamental portion of his attire. The flut- 
tered and confused disposition of all the mot- 
ley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in 
a scarcely less degree than his eager and un- 
settled manner, the disorder of his mind, and 
by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened 
the more impressive wildness of his face. . . 

Some time elapsed before Barnaby got the 
better of the shock, he had sustained, or re- 
gained his old health and gaiety. But he re- 
covered by degrees: and although he could 
never separate his condemnation and escape 
from the idea of a terrific dream, he became, 
in other respects, more rational. Dating 
from the time of his recovery, he had a bet- 
ter memory and greater steadiness of purpose ; 
but a dark cloud overhung his whole previous 
existence, and never cleared away. 

He was not the less happy for this ; for his 
love of freedom and interest in all that moved 
or grew, or had its being in the elements, re- 
mained to him unimpaired. He lived with 
his mother on the Maypole farm, tending the 
poultry and the cattle, working in a garden 
of his own, and helping everywhere. He was 
known to every bird and beast about the place, 
and had a name for every one. Never was 
there a lighter-hearted husbandman, a crea- 
ture more popular with young and old, a 
249 



MR. RUDGE 



blither or more happy soul than Barnaby : and 
though he was free to ramble where he would, 
he never quitted Her, but was for evermore 
her stay and comfort. 

Barnaby Rudge, ch. iii-vi, x-xii, xvii, xxv, 
xxvi, xlv-l, Hi, liii, Ivii, Iviii, Ix, Ixii, Ixv, 
Ixviii, Ixix, Ixxii, Ixxv-lxxvii, Ixxix, 
Ixxxii. 

Mr. Rudge, Barnahy's father, and steward 
to Mr. Reuben Haredale, whom he murdered. 
After wandering about for years, shunned by 
and shunning his fellow men, and keeping his 
unfortunate wife in terror, by appearing from 
time to time to demand money, he was finally 
captured and executed. 

A man wrapped in a loose riding-coat with 
huge cuffs ornamented with tarnished silver 
lace and large metal buttons, who sat apart 
from the regular frequenters of the house, 
and wearing a hat flapped over his face, which 
was still further shaded by the hand on which 
his forehead rested. . . . 

The stranger took off his hat, and disclosed 
the hard features of a man of sixty or there- 
abouts, much weather-beaten and worn by 
time, and the naturally harsh expression of 
which was not improved by a dark handker- 
chief which was bound tightly round his head, 
and, while it served the purpose of a wig, 
250 



( 



MR. RUDGE 



shaded his forehead, and almost hid his eye- 
brows. If it were intended to conceal or di- 
vert attention from a deep gash, now healed 
into an ugly seam, which when it was first 
inflicted must have laid bare his cheekbone, 
the object was but indifferently attained, for it 
could scarcely fail to be noted at a glance. 
His complexion was of a cadaverous hue, and 
he had a grizzly jagged beard of some three 
week's date. . . . 

Among all the dangerous characters who 
prowled and skulked in the metropolis at 
night, there was one man from whom many 
as uncouth and fierce as he shrank with an 
involuntary dread. Who he was, or whence 
he came, was a question often asked, but 
which none could answer. His name was un- 
known, he had never been seen until within 
eight days or thereabouts, and was equally a 
stranger to the old ruffians, upon whose 
haunts he ventured fearlessly, as to the young. 
He could be no spy^ for he never removed his 
slouched hat to look about him, entered into 
conversation with no man, heeded nothing 
that passed^ listened to no discourse, regarded 
nobody that came or went. But so ^surely as 
the dead of night set in, so surely this man 
was in the midst of the loose concourse in 
the night-cellar where outcasts of every grade 
resorted; and there he sat till morning. 
251 



MR. RUDGE 



He was not only a spectre at their licentious 
feasts; a something in the midst of their rev- 
elry and riot that chilled and haunted them; 
but out of doors he was the same. Directly 
it was dark, he was abroad — never in com- 
pany with any one, but always alone; never 
lingering or loitering but always walking 
swiftly; and looking (so they said who had 
seen him) over his shoulder from time to 
time, and as he did so quickening his pace. 
In the fields, the lanes, the roads, in all quar- 
ters of the town — east, west, north, and south 
— that man was seen gliding on, like a 
shadow. He was always hurrying away. 
Those who encountered him, saw him steal 
past, caught sight of the backward glance, and 
so lost him in the darkness. 

This constant restlessness, and flitting to 
and fro, gave rise to strange stories. He was 
seen in such distant and remote places, at 
times so nearly tallying with each other, that 
some doubted whether there were not two of 
them, or more — some, whether he had not 
unearthly means of travelling from spot to 
spot. The footpad hiding in a ditch had 
marked him passing like a ghost along its 
brink; the vagrant had met him on the dark 
high-road; the beggar had seen him pause 
upon the bridge to look down at the water, 
and then sweep on again; they who dealt in 
252 



MRS. RUDGE 



bodies with the surgeons could swear he slept 
in churchyards, and that they had beheld him 
glide away among the tombs on their ap- 
proach. And as they told these stories to 
each other, one who had looked about him 
would pull his neighbour by the sleeve, and 
there he would be among them. 
Barnahy Rudge, ch. i-iii, v, vi, xvi-xviii, 

xxxiii, xlv, xlvi, Iv, Ivi, Ixi, Ixii, Ixv, Ixviii, 

Ixix, Ixxiii, Ixxxvi. 

Mrs. Rudge, the mother of Barnahy Rudge. 

She was about forty — perhaps two or three 
years older — with a cheerful aspect, and a 
face that had once been pretty. It bore traces 
of affliction and care, but they were of an old 
date, and Time had smootTied them. Any one 
who had bestowed but a casual glance on 
Barnaby might have known that this was his 
mother, from the strong resemblance between 
them; but where in his face there was wild- 
ness and vacancy, in hers there was the pa- 
tient composure of long effort and quiet resig- 
nation. 

One thing about this face was very strange 
and startling. You could not look upon it in 
its most cheerful mood without feeling that 
it had some extraordinary capacity of ex- 
pressing terror. It was not on the surface. 
It was in no one feature that it lingered. You 
253 



MRS. RUDGE 



could not take the eyes, or mouth, or lines 
upon the cheek, and say, if this or that were 
otherwise, it would not be so. Yet there it 
always lurked — something for ever dimly 
seen, but ever there, and never absent for a 
moment. It was the faintest, palest shadow 
of some look, to which an instant of intense 
and most unutterable horror only could have 
given birth; but indistinct and feeble as it 
was, it did suggest what that look must have 
been, and fixed it in the mind as if it had had 
existence in a dream. 

More faintly imaged, and wanting force and 
purpose, as it were, because of his darkened 
intellect, there was this same stamp upon the 
son. Seen in a picture, it must have had 
some legend with it] and would have haunted 
those who looked upon the canvas. They 
who knew the Maypole story, and could re- 
member what the widow was, before her hus- 
band's and his master's murder, understood 
it well. They recollected how the change had 
come, and could call to mind that when her 
son, was born, upon the very day the deed 
was known, he bore upon his wrist what 
seemed a smear of blood but half washed 
out. 
Barnaby Rudge, ch. iv-vi, xvi, xvii, xxv, xxvi, 

xliii, xlv-l, Ivii, Ixii, Ixix, Ixxiii, Ixxvi, 

Ixxix, Ixxxiii. 

254 



MR. BOB SAWYER 



Mr. Bob Sawyer, a crony of Mr. Ben 
Allen (q. v.), and a fellow medical student 
whose acquaintance Mr. Pickwick makes at 
Mr. Wardle's. He afterwards sets up as a 
medical practitioner at Bristol, where Mr. 
Winkle meets him, as ''Sawyer late Nocke- 
morf" — hut the practice is pretty much of a 
sham, and he passed through the Gazette 
afterwards "passing over to Bengal with Mr. 
Benjamin Allen, having received appoint- 
ments from the East India Company where 
they had yellow fever fourteen times. They 
then resolved to try a little abstinence, since 
which period they have been doing well." 

Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was habited in a 
coarse blouse coat, which, without being 
either greatcoat or surtout, partook of the 
nature and quaHties of both, had about him 
that sort of slovenly smartness, and swag- 
gering gait, which is peculiar to young gen- 
tlemen who smoke in the streets by day, shout 
and scream in the same by night, call waiters 
by their christian names, and do various other 
acts and deeds of an equally facetious de- 
scription. He wore a pair of plaid trousers, 
and a large rough double-breasted waistcoat; 
and out of doors, carried a thick stick with 
a big top. He eschewed gloves, and looked, 
upon the whole, something like a dissipated 
Robinson Crusoe. 

255 



BILL SIKES 



Pickwick Papers, ch. xxx, xxxi, xxxviii, 
xlviii, l-lii, Ivii. 

Bill Sikes^, a black-hearted and brutal 
thief and housebreaker, who had for his mis- 
tress the faithful and devoted Nancy. She 
defends Oliver from his brutality, and im- 
parts to his friends a plot against him. She 
is watched and Fagin tells Sikes that she has 
informed against them. Thereupon he bru- 
tally murders the girl and Uees into the coun- 
try. He returns to London thinking to es- 
cape to France, he is tracked to his hiding 
place and in endeavoring to escape from the 
roof by means of a rope he is caught in it 
by the neck and strangled to death. 

A stoutly-built fellow of about five-and- 
thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled 
drab breeches, laced-up half boots^ and grey 
cotton stockings, which inclosed a very bulky 
pair of legs, with' large swelling calves; the 
kind of legs, that in such costume, always look 
in an unfinished and incomplete state with- 
out a set of fetters to garnish them. He 
had a brown hat on his head, and a dirty 
Belcher handkerchief round his neck: with 
the long frayed ends of which he smeared 
the beer from his face as he spoke; disclos- 
ing, when he had done so, a broad heavy 
countenance with a beard of three days' 
256 



BILL SIKES 



growth, and two scowling eyes; one of which 
displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of 
having been recently damaged by a blow. . . 
In the obscure parlour of a low public-house, 
situate in the filthiest part of Little Saffron 
Hill; a dark and gloomy den, where a flaring 
gas-light burnt all day in the winter-time: 
and where no ray of sun ever shone in the 
summer ; there sat, brooding over a little pew- 
ter measure and a small glass, strongly 
impregnated with the smell of liquor, a man 
in a velveteen coat, drab shorts, half boots, 
and stockings, whom, even by that dim light, 
no experienced agent of police would have 
hesitated for one instant to recognize as Mr. 
William Sikes. At his feet, sat a white- 
coated, red-eyed dog; who occupied himself, 
alternately, in winking at his master with 
both eyes at the same time; and in licking 
a large, fresh cut on one side of his mouth, 
which appeared to be the result of some 
recent conflict. 

" Keep quiet, you warmint ! Keep quiet ! " 
said Mr. Sikes, suddenly breaking silence. 
Whether his meditations were so intense as to 
be disturbed by the dog's winking, or whether 
his feelings were so wrought upon by his 
reflections that they required all the reHef 
derivable from kicking an unoffending animal 
to allay them, is matter for argument and 
257 



BILL SIKES 



consideration. Whatever was the cause, the 
effect was a kick and a curse bestowed upon 
the dob simultaneously. 

Dogs are not generally apt to revenge in- 
juries inflicted upon them by their masters; 
but Mr. Sikes's dog, having faults of temper 
in common with his owner: and labouring, 
perhaps, at this moment, under a powerful 
sense of injury: made no more ado but at 
once fixed his teeth in one of the half-boots. 
Having given it a hearty shake, he retired, 
growling, under a form; thereby just es- 
caping the pewter measure which Mr. Sikes 
levelled at his head. 

" You would, would you ? " said Sikes, seiz- 
ing the poker in one hand, and deliberately 
opening with the other a large clasp-knife, 
which he drew from his pocket. " Come 
here, you born devil ! Come here ! D'ye 
hear?" 

The dog no doubt heard ; because Mr. Sikes 
spoke in the very harshest key of a very 
harsh voice; but, appearing to entertain some 
unaccountable objection to having his throat 
cut, he remained where he was, and growled 
more fiercely than before: at the same time 
grasping the end of the poker between his 
teeth, and biting at it like a wild beast. 

This resistance only infuriated Mr. Sikes 
the more; who, dropping on his knees, began 
258 



SIR BARNET SKETTLES 



to assail the animal most furiously. The dog 
jumped from right to left, and from left to 
right: snapping, growling, and barking; the 
iman thrust and swore, and struck and blas- 
phemed; and the struggle was reaching a 
most critical point for one or other; when, 
the door suddenly opening, the dog darted 
out: leaving Bill Sikes with the poker and 
the clasp-knife in his hands. 
Oliver Twist, ch. xiii, xv, xvi, xix-xxH, xxviii, 
xxxix, xliv, xlvii, xlviii, I. 

Sir Barnet Skettles was a member of 
the House of Commons and lived in a pretty 
villa at Fulham, where Florence Dombey 
went on a visit. 

Sir Barnet Skettles expressed his personal 
consequence chiefly through * an antique gold 
snuff-box, and a ponderous silk pocket- 
handkerchief, which he had an imposing man- 
ner of drawing out of his pocket like a ban- 
ner, and using with both hands at once. Sir 
Barnet's object in life was constantly to ex- 
tend the range of his acquaintance. Like 
a heavy body dropped into water — not to dis- 
parage so worthy a gentleman by the com- 
parison—it was in the nature of things that 
Sir Barnet must spread an ever-widening 
circle about him, until there was no room 
let. Or, like a sound in air, the vibration 
259 



SIR BARNET SKETTLES 



of which, according to the speculation of 
an ingenious modern philosopher, may go on 
travelling for ever through the interminable 
fields of space, nothing but coming to the end 
of his moral tether could stop Sir Barnet 
Skettles in his voyage of discovery through 
the social system. 

Sir Barnet was proud of making people 
acquainted with people. He liked the thing 
for its own sake, and it advanced his favourite 
object too. For example, if Sir Barnet had 
the good fortune to get hold of a raw recruit, 
or a country gentleman, and ensnared him to 
his hospitable villa. Sir Barnet would say to 
him, on the morning after his arrival, " Now, 
my dear Sir, is there anybody you would like 
to know? Who is there you would wish to 
meet? Do you take any interest in writing 
people, or in painting, or sculpturing people, 
or in acting people, or in anything of that 
sort?" Possibly the patient answered yes, 
and mentioned somebody, of whom Sir Barnet 
had no more personal knowledge than of 
Ptolemy the Great. Sir Barnet replied, that 
nothing on earth was easier, as he knew him 
very well: immediately called on the afore- 
said somebody, left his card, wrote a short 
note, " My dear Sir — penalty of your emi- 
nent position — friend at my house naturally 
desirous — Lady Skettles and myself partici- 
260 



HAROLD SKIMPOLE 



pate — trust that genius being superior to 
ceremonies, you will do us the distinguished 
favour of giving us the pleasure," &c., &c. — 
and so killed a brace of birds v^ith one stone, 
dead as door-nails. 

Danbey and Son, ch. xiv, xxiii, xxiv, xxviii, 
Ix, 

Harold Skimpole, a protege of Mr. John 
Jarndyce — brilliant, clever and attractive, 
but sentimental, selfish and unprincipled, with 
no- idea of the value of money and content 
to live upon his friends, constantly being ar- 
rested for debt, and as constantly having his 
debts discharged for him. 

He was a little bright creature, with a 
rather large head; but a delicate face, and a 
sweet voice, and there was a perfect charm 
in him. All he said was so free from effort 
and spontaneous, and was said with such a 
captivating gaiety, that it was fascinating 
to hear him talk. Being of a more slender 
figure than Mr. Jarndyce, and having a richer 
complexion, with browner hair, he looked 
younger. Indeed, he had more the appear- 
ance, in all respects, of a damaged young man, 
than a well-preserved elderly one. There was 
an easy negligence in his manner, and even in 
his dress (his hair carelessly disposed, and 
his neck-kerchief loose and flowing, as I 
261 



HAROLD SKIMPOLE 



have seen artists paint their own portraits), 
which I could not separate from the idea 
of a romantic youth who had undergone some 
unique process of depreciation. It struck me 
as being not at all like the manner or ap- 
pearance of a man who had advanced in life, 
by the usual road of years, cares, and ex- 
periences. . . . 

He was so full of feeling, and had such 
a delicate sentiment for what was beautiful 
or tender, that he could have won a heart by 
that alone. . . . 

Mr. Skimpole could play on the piano, and 
the violoncello; and he was a composer — 
had composed half an opera once, but got 
tired of it — and played what he composed, 
with taste. . . . 

I gathered from the conversation, that Mr. 
Skimpole had been educated for the medical 
profession, and had once lived, in his profes- 
sional capacity, in the household of a Ger- 
man prince. He told us, however, that as 
he had always been a mere child in point of 
weights and measures, and had never known 
anything about them (except that they dis- 
gusted him), he had never been able to pre- 
scribe with the requisite accuracy of detail. 
In fact, he said, he had no head for detail. 
Bleak House, ch. iv, viii, ix, xv, xviii, xxxi, 

xxxvii, xliii, xlvi, Ivii, Ixi, 
262 



DOCTOR SLAMMER 



Doctor Slammer. Jingle having borrowed 
a dress suit from Mr. Winkle goes to the 
Charity Ball at the Bull Inn Rochester, and 
pays too much attention to the widow lady 
who is the object of Dr. Slammer's choice. 
The', Pickwickian buttons on the coat cause 
Mr. Winkle to be taken for the offender and 
Dr, Slammer challenges him to a duel. On 
the Held, Dr. Slammer discovers he is not the 
man and they become fast friends. 

One of the most popular personages, in his 
own circle, present, was a little fat man, with 
a ring of upright black hair round his head, 
and an extensive bald plain on the top of 
it — Doctor Slammer, surgeon to the 97th. 
The Doctor took snuff with every body, chat- 
ted with every body, laughed, danced, made 
jokes, played whist, did everything, and was 
everywhere. To these pursuits, multifarious 
as they were, the little Doctor added a more 
important one than any — he was indefati- 
gable in paying the most unremitting and de- 
voted atttention to a little old widow, whose 
rich dress and profusion of ornament be- 
spoke her a most desirable addition to a 
limited income. 

Pickwick Papers, ch. ii. Hi. 



263 



MR. SLUM 



Mr. Slum, a writer of poetical advertise- 
ments. 

A tallish gentleman with a hook nose and 
black hair, dressed in a military surtout very- 
short and tight in the sleeves, and which 
had once been frogged and braided all over, 
but was now sadly shorn of its garniture 
and quite threadbare — dressed too in ancient 
grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and 
a pair of pumps in the winter of their ex- 
istence. 

" Will you beHeve me," said Mr. Slum; 
" when I say it's the delight of my life to have 
dabbled in poetry, when I think I've exer- 
cised my pen upon this charming theme? 
By the way — any orders? Is there any lit- 
tle thing I can do for you ? " . . . 

" Ask the perfumers, ask the blacking mak- 
ers, ask the hatters, ask the old lottery-office- 
keepers — ask any man among 'em what my 
poetry has done for him, and mark my words, 
he blesses the name of Slum. If he's an 
honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and 
blesses the name of Slum — mark that ! . . . 

"You'll find in a certain angle of that 
dreary pile, called Poets' Corner, a few smaller 
names than Slum," retorted that gentleman, 
tapping himself expressively on the forehead 
to imply that there was some slight quantity 
of brains behind it. "I've got a little trifle 
264 



MR. SLURK 



here now," said Mr. Slum, taking off his hat 
which was full of scraps of paper, " a little 
trifle here, thrown off in the heat of the mo- 
ment, which I should say was exactly the 
thing you wanted to set this place on fire 
with. It's an acrostic — the name at this mo- 
ment is Warren, but the idea's a convertible 
one, and a positive inspiration for Jarley. 
Have the acrostic. . . . 

Mr. Slum entered the order in a small note- 
book as a three-and-sixpenny one. Mr. 
Slum then withdrew to alter the acrostic, 
after taking a most affectionate leave of his 
patroness, and promising to return, as soon 
as he possibly could, with a fair copy for the 
printer. 
The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xxviii. 

Mr. Slurk, Editor of the " Eatanswill In- 
dependent." 

He was a shortish gentleman, with very 
stiff black hair, cut in the porcupine or black- 
ing-brush style, and standing stiff and straight 
all over his head ; his aspect was pompous and 
threatening; his manner was peremptory; his 
eyes sharp and restless; and his whole bear- 
ing bespoke a feeling of great confidence in 
himself, and a consciousness of immeasurable 
superiority over all other people. 

This gentleman was shown into the room 
265 



MR. SLURK 



originally assigned to the patriotic Mr. Pott; 
and the waiter remarked, in dumb astonish- 
ment at the singular coincidence, that he had 
no sooner lighted the candles than the gentle- 
man, diving into his hat, drew forth a news- 
paper, and began to read it with the very same 
expression of indignant scorn which upon 
the majestic features of Pott had paralysed 
his energies an hour before. The man ob- 
served too, that whereas Mr. Pott's scorn had 
been roused by a newspaper headed The Eat- 
answill Independent, this gentleman's wither- 
ing contempt was awakened by a newspaper 
entitled the Eatanswill Gazette. . . . 

"Are you the landlord?" enquired the gen- 
tleman. 

" I am, Sir," replied the landlord. 

" Do you know me ? " demanded the gentle- 
man. 

" I have not that pleasure, Sir," rejoined 
the landlord. 

" My name is Slurk," said the gentleman. 

" Well, Sir, I do not know you." 

" Good God ! " said the stranger, dashing 
his clenched fist upon the table. " And this 
is popularity ! " 

The landlord took a step or two towards 

the door, and the stranger fixing his eyes upon 

him, resumed. "This," said the stranger, 

" this is gratitude for years of labour and 

266 



CHEVY SLYME 



study in behalf of the masses. I alight wet 
and weary; no enthusiastic crowds press for- 
ward to greet their champion, the church- 
bells are silent; the very name elicits no 
responsive feeling in their torpid bosoms. It 
is enough/' said the agitated Mr. Slurk, pac- 
ing to and fro, "to curdle the ink in one's 
pen, and induce one to abandon their cause 
for ever." 
Pickwick Papers, ch. li. (See also Mr. Pott.) 

Chevy Slyme, a friend of Mr. Montague 
Tigg, and one of the many relatives of old 
Martin Chusslewit who were on the look-out 
for a share of his property. 

Wretched and forlorn as he looked, Mr. 
Slyme had once been, in his way, the choicest 
of swaggerers: putting forth his pretensions, 
boldly, as a man of infinite taste and most 
undoubted promise. The stock-in-trade req- 
uisite to set up an amateur in this depart- 
ment of business is very slight, and easily 
got together; a trick of the nose and a curl 
of the lip sufficient to compound a tolerable 
sneer, being ample provision for any exigency. 
But, in an evil hour, this off-shot of the 
Chuzzlewit trunk, being lazy, and ill qualified 
for any regular pursuit, and having dissipated 
such means as he ever possessed, had form- 
ally established himself as a professor of 
267 



SMIKE 



Taste for a livelihood; and finding, too late, 
that something more than his old amount of 
qualifications was necessary to sustain him 
in this calling, had quickly fallen to his present 
level, where he retained nothing of his old 
self but his boastfulness and his bile, and 
seemed to have no existence separate or apart 
from his friend Tigg. And now so abject 
and so pitiful was he — at once so maudlin, 
insolent, beggarly, and proud — that even his 
friend and parasite, standing erect beside him, 
swelled into a Man by contrast. . . . 

Mr. Slyme — of too haughty a stomach to 
work, to beg, to borrow, or to steal ; yet mean 
enough to be worked or borrowed, begged or 
stolen for, by any catspaw that would serve 
his turn ; too insolent to lick the hand that fed 
him in his need, yet cur enough to bite and 
tear it in the dark — fell forward with his 
head uj^on the table, and so declined into a 
sodden sleep. 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. iv, vii, li. 

Smike, the son of Ralph Nickleby; who 
abandoned him; he was left with S queers 
at Dothehoy's Hall when a small hoy. 
Nicholas Nickleby rescues him, and they 
wander about together with a company of 
strolling players. He is captured by Squeers, 
set free by John Browdie and finally finds a 
268 



SMIKE 



home with the Nicklebys. He cherishes a 
hopeless love for Nicholas' sister, Kate, and 
anally droops and dies from the effects of the 
hardships of his early life. 

Although he could not have been less than 
eighteen or nineteen years old, and was tall 
for that age, he wore a skeleton suit, such as 
is usually put upon very little boys, and which, 
though most absurdly short in the arms and 
legs, was quite wide enough for his attenuated 
frame. In order that the lower part of his 
legs might be in perfect keeping with his 
singular dress, he had a very large pair of 
boots originally made for tops, which might 
have been once worn by some stout farmer, 
but were now too patched and tattered for a 
beggar. God knows how long he had been 
there, but he still wore the same linen which 
he had first taken down; for round his neck, 
was a tattered child's frill, only half con- 
cealed by a coarse man's neckerchief. He 
was lame. ... 

The wretched creature, Smike, since the 
night Nicholas had spoken kindly to him in 
the school-room, had followed him to and fro 
with an ever restless desire to serve or help 
him, anticipating such little wants as his hum- 
ble ability could supply, and content only to 
be near him. He would sit beside him for 
hours looking patiently into his face, and a 
269 



SMIKE 



word would brighten up his care-worn visage, 
and call into it a passing gleam even of hap- 
piness. He was an altered being; he had an 
object now, and that object was to show his 
attachment to the only person — that person 
a stranger — who had treated him, not to say 
with kindness, but like a human creature. 

Upon this poor being all the spleen and ill- 
humour that could not be vented on Nicholas 
were unceasingly bestowed. Drudgery would 
have been nothing — he was well used to that. 
Buffetings inflicted without cause would have 
been equally a matter of course, for to them 
also he had served a long and weary ap- 
prenticeship; but it was no sooner observed 
that he had become attached to Nicholas, 
than stripes and blows, stripes and blows, 
morning, noon, and night, were his only por- 
tion. Squeers was jealous of the influence 
which his man had so soon acquired, and his 
family hated him, and Smike paid for both. 
Nicholas saw it, and ground his teeth at every 
repetition of the savage and cowardly at- 
tack. . . . 

He had arranged a few regular lessons for 
the boys, and one night as he paced up and 
down the dismal school-room, his swollen 
heart almost bursting to think that his pro- 
tection and countenance should have increased 
the misery of the wretched being whose pe- 
270 



SERGEANT SNUBBIN 



culiar destitution had awakened his pity, he 
paused mechanically in a dark corner where 
sat the object of his thoughts. 

The poor soul was poring hard over a tat- 
tered book with the traces of recent tears 
still upon his face, vainly endeavouring to 
master some task which a child of nine years 
old, possessed of ordinary powers, could have 
conquered with ease, but which to the addled 
brain of the crushed boy of nineteen was a 
sealed and hopeless mystery. Yet there he 
sat, patiently conning the page again and 
again, stimulated by no boyish ambition, for 
he was the common jest and scoff even of 
the uncouth objects thi^t congregated about 
him, but inspired by the one eager desire to 
please his solitary friend. 
Nicholas Nicklehy, ch. vii, viii, xii, xiii, xv, 

XX, xxii, xxiii, xxv, xxix, xxx, xxxii, 

XXXV, xxvii-xl, xlv, xlix, Iv, Ivii. 

Sergeant Snubbin, the senior counsel 
for Mr. Pickwick in Mrs. Bar dell's suit against 
him for Breach of Promise. 

Mr. Serjeant Snubbin was a lantern-faced 
sallow-complexioned man, of about five-and- 
forty, or — as the novels say — he might be 
fifty. He had that dull-looking boiled eye 
v^hich is so often to be seen in the heads of 
people who have applied themselves during 
271 



SERGEANT SNUBBIN 



many years to a weary and laborious course 
of study; and which would have been suffi- 
cient, without the additional eyeglass which 
dangled from a broad black riband round 
his neck, to warn a stranger that he was very 
near-sighted. His hair was thin and weak, 
which was partly attributable to his having 
never devoted much time to its arrangement, 
and partly to his having worn for five-and- 
twenty years the forensic wig which hung on 
a block beside him. The marks of hair- 
powder on his coat-collar, and the ill-washed 
and worse tied white neckerchief round his 
throat, showed that he had not found leisure 
since he left the court to make any alteration 
in his dress; while the slovenly style of the 
remainder of his costume warranted the in- 
ference that his personal appearance would 
not have been very much improved if he had. 
Books of practice, heaps of papers, and 
opened letters, were scattered over the table 
without any attempt at order or arrange- 
ment; the furniture of the room was old and 
ricketty; the doors of the book-case were rot- 
ting in their hinges; the dust flew out from 
the carpet in little clouds at every step; 
the blinds were yellow with age and dirt; 
and the state of everything in the room 
showed, with a clearness not to be mistaken, 
that Mr. Serjeant Snubbin was far too much 
272 



MR. FRANCIS SPENLOW 

occupied with his professional pursuits to 

take any great heed or regard of his personal 

comforts. 

Pickwick Papers, xxxi, xxxiv. 

Mr. Francis Spenlow, the father of 
Dora, who became David Copperfield's first 
wife. He was partner in the Urm of Spenlow 
& Jorkins (proctors in Doctors Common) 
to which Copper-Held was articled. In spite of 
his assertions that his affairs were all in order 
and Dora well provided for, it came out after 
his sudden death, that he had made no will, 
and had been living beyond his means, leaving 
his daughter without resources. 

Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown trimmed with 
white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his 
hat as he came. He was a little light-haired 
gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the 
stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He 
was buttoned up mighty trim and tight, and 
must have taken a great deal of pains with 
his whiskers, which were accurately curled. 
His gold watch-chain was so massive, that 
a fancy came across me, that he ought to have 
a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, 
like those which are put up over the gold- 
beaters' shops. He was got up with such 
care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly 
bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced 
273 



WACKFORD SQUEERS 



at some papers on his desk, after sitting down 
in his chair, to move his whole body,, from the 
bottom of his spine, like Punch. 
David Copperfield, ch. xxiii, xxvi, xxix, 
xxxiii, XXXV, xxxviii. 

Wackford S queers, the Yorkshire school 
master who ran Dotheboys Hall, by whom 
Nicholas Nickleby was engaged. He was 
brutal, rapacious and ignorant. After a long 
career he receives his just deserts for he was 
transported for seven years for stealing a 
will and Dotheboys Hall was broken up. 

Mr. Squeers's appearance was not prepos- 
sessing. He had but one eye and the popu- 
lar prejudice runs in favour of two. The eye 
he had was unquestionably useful, but de- 
cidedly not ornamental, being of a greenish 
grey, and in shape resembling the fan-light 
of a street door. The blank side of his face 
was much wrinkled and puckered up, which 
gave him a very sinister appearance, especially 
when he smiled, at which time his expression 
bordered closely on the villanous. His hair 
was very flat and shiny, save at the ends, 
where it was brushed stiffly up from a low 
protruding forehead, which assorted well with 
his harsh voice and coarse manner. He was 
about two or three and fifty, and a trifle be- 
low the middle size; he wore a white necker- 
274 



MR. JUSTICE STARELEIGH 

chief with long ends, and a suit of scholastic 
black, but his coat sleeves being a great deal 
too long, and his trousers a great deal too 
short, he appeared ill at ease in his clothes, 
and as if he were in a perpetual state of 
astonishment at finding himself so respect- 
able. 
Nicholas Nickleby, ch. iv-ix, xiii, xxxiv, 

xxxviii, xxxix, xUi, xlv, Ivi, Ivii, lix, Ix, 

Ixv. 

Mr. Justice Stareleigh, the judge who 
presided at the trial of Bardell vs. Pickwick. 

Mr. Justice Stareleigh (who sat in the ab- 
sence of the Chief Justice, occasioned by in- 
disposition), was a most particularly short 
man, and so fat that he seemed all face and 
waistcoat. He rolled in upon two little turned 
legs, and having bobbed gravely to the bar, 
who bobbed gravely to him, put his little legs 
underneath his table, and his little three- 
cornered hat upon it; and when Mr. Justice 
Stareleigh had done this, all you could see 
of him was two queer little eyes, one broad 
pink face, and somewhere about half of a big 
and very comical-looking wig. ... 

Mr. Justice Stareleigh summed up, in the 

old-established and most approved form. He 

read as much of his notes to the jury as he 

could decipher on so short a notice, and made 

275 



THE REV. MR. STIGGINS 

running comments on the evidence as he went 
along. If Mrs. Bardell was right, it was 
perfectly clear Mr. Pickwick was wrong, and 
if they thought the evidence of Mrs. Cluppins 
worthy of credence they would believe it, and, 
if they didn't, why they wouldn't. If they 
were satified that a breach of promise of 
marriage had been committed, they would 
find for the plaintiff with such damages as 
they thought proper; and if, on the other 
hand, it appears to them that no promise of 
marriage had ever been given, they would 
find for the defendant with no damages at all. 
The jury then retired to their private room to 
talk the matter over, and the Judge retired 
to his private room, to refresh himself with 
a mutton chop and a glass of sherry. 
Pickwick Papers, ch. xxxiv. 

The Rev. Mr. Stiggins, alias " The 
Shepherd," a hypocritical, drunken, canting 
parson who ministers to a fanatical Hock of 
women of which Mrs. Weller the elder is 
one. His career comes to an ignominious 
end after her death and Mr. Weller is avenged. 

He was a prim-faced, red-nosed man, with 
a long thin countenance and a semi-rattle- 
snake sort of eye — rather sharp, but de- 
cidedly bad. He wore very short trousers, 
and black-cotton stockings, which, like the 
276 



THE REV. MR. STIGGINS 

rest of his apparel, were particularly rusty. 
His looks were starched, but his white necker- 
chief was not; and its long limp ends strag- 
gled over his closely-buttoned waistcoat in a 
very uncouth and unpicturesque fashion. A 
pair of old, worn, beaver gloves, a broad- 
brimmed hat, and a faded green umbrella, 
with plenty of whalebone sticking through the 
bottom as if to counterbalance the want of 
a handle at the top, lay on a chair beside 
him; and being disposed in a very tidy and 
careful manner seemed to imply that the red- 
nosed man whoever he was, had no intention 
of going away in a hurry. 

To do the red-nosed man justice, he would 
have been very far from wise if he had en- 
tertained any such intention, for, to judge 
from all appearances, he must have been pos- 
sessed of a most desirable circle of acquaint- 
ance, if he could have reasonably expected to 
be more comfortable anywhere else. The fire 
was blazing brightly, under the influence of 
the bellows, and the "kettle was singing gaily, 
under the influence of both. A small tray 
of tea-things was arranged on the table; a 
plate of hot buttered toast was gently sim- 
mering before the fire ; and the red-nosed man 
himself was busily engaged in converting a 
large slice of bread, into the same agreeable 
edible, through the instrumentality of a long 
2T7 



DR. STRONG 



brass toasting-fork. Besides him, stood a 
glass of reeking hot pine-apple rum and wa- 
ter, with a slice of lemon in it: and every 
time the red-nosed man stopped to bring the 
round of bread to his eye, with the view of 
ascertaining how it got on, he imbibed a drop 
or two of the hot pine-apple rum and water, 
and smiled upon the rather stout lady, as 
she blew the fire. 
Pickzvick Papers, ch. xxvii, xxxiii, xlv, Hi. 

Dr. Strong, a charming and amiable 
school master in Canterbury at whose school 
David Copperiield was educated. He was ab- 
sorbed in the making of a new Dictionary, in 
which Copperiield helped him later. He zvas 
married to a wife much younger than himself, 
who, though strongly tempted from her al- 
legiance to him by an early affection for a 
young cousin, remained loyal and true. 

My new master. Doctor Strong, looked al- 
most as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall 
iron rails and gates outside the house; and 
almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone 
urns that flanked them, and were set up, on 
the top of the red-brick wall, at regular dis- 
tances all round the court, like sublimated 
skittles, for Time to play at. He was in his 
library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his 
clothes not particularly well brushed, and his 
278 



DR. STRONG 



hair not particularly well combed; his knee- 
smalls unbraced; his long back gaiters un- 
buttoned; and his shoes yawning like two 
caverns on the hearth-rug. Turning upon 
me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a 
long-forgotten blind old horse who once used 
to crop the grass, and tumble over the graves, 
in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was 
glad to see me: and then he gave me his 
hand; which I didn't know what to do with, 
as it did nothing for itself. . . . 

The Doctor was the idol of the whole 
school: and it must have been a badly-com- 
posed school if he had been anything else, 
for he was the kindest of men; with a sim- 
ple faith in him that might have touched 
thfe stone hearts of the very urns upon the 
wall. As he walked up and down that part 
of the courtyard which was at the side of 
the house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws 
looking after him with their heads cocked 
slyly, as if they knew how much more know- 
ing they were in worldly affairs than he, if 
any sort of vagabond could only get near 
enough to his creaking shoes to attract his 
attention to one sentence of a tale of dis- 
tress, that vagabond was made for the next 
two days. It was so notorious in the house, 
that the masters and head-boys took pains 
to cut these marauders off at angles, and to 
279 



DR. STRONG 



get out of windows, and turn them out of 
the courtyard,- before they could make the 
Doctor aware of their presence; which was 
sometimes happily effected within a few 
yards of him, without his knowing anything 
of the matter, as he jogged to and fro. Out- 
side his own domain, and unprotected, he was 
a very sheep for the shearers. He would 
have taken his gaiters off his legs, to give 
away. In fact, there was a story current 
among us (I have no idea, and never had, on 
what authority, but I have believed it for 
so many years that I feel quite certain it is 
true), that on a frosty day, one winter-time, 
he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar- 
woman, who occasioned some scandal in the 
neighborhood by exhibiting a fine infant from 
door to door, wrapped in those garments, 
which were universally recognised, being as 
well known in the vicinity as the Cathedral. 
The legend added that the only person who 
did not identify them was the Doctor himself, 
who, when they were shortly afterwards dis- 
played at the door of a little second-hand 
shop of no very good repute, where such 
things were taken in exchange for gin, was 
more than once observed to handle them ap- 
provingly, as if admiring some curious novelty 
in the pattern, and considering them an im- 
provement on his own. 
280 



MR. STRYVER 



David Copperfield, ch. xvi, xvii, xix, xxxvi, 
xxxix, xlii, xlv, Ixii, Ixiv. 

Mr. STi^YVER '("Bully Stryver"), the 
London Barrister who was counsel for Charles 
Darnay in his trial when accused of being a 
spy — the patron of Sydney Carton. 

A man of little more than thirty, but looking 
twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, 
red, bluff, and free from any drawback of 
delicacy, had a pushing way of shouldering 
himself (morally and physically) in companies 
and conversations, that argued well for his 
shouldering his way up in life. . . . 

A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at 
the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had begun cau- 
tiously to hew away the lower staves of the 
ladder on which he mounted. Sessions and 
Old Bailey had now to summon their favour- 
ite, specially to their longing arms; and 
shouldering itself towards the visage of the 
Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King's 
Bench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryer 
might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed 
of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its 
way at the sun from among a rank garden-full 
of flaring companions. . . . 

Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the 
Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vaca- 
tion's infancy was still upon it. Anybody 
281 



MR. STRYVER 



who had seen him projecting himself into 
Soho, while he was yet on Saint Dunstan's 
side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full- 
blown way along the pavement, to the jostle- 
ment of all weaker people, might have seen 
how safe and strong he was. . . . 

It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he 
always seemed too big for any place, or 
space. He was so much too big for Tellson's, 
that old clerks in distant corners looked up 
with looks of remonstrance, as though he 
squeezed them against the wall. The House 
itself, magnificently reading the paper quite 
in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, 
as if the Stryver head had been butted into 
its responsible waistcoat. . . . 

[Stryver] had his slippers on and a loose 
bed-gown, and his throat was bare for greater 
ease. He had that rather cold, strained, 
seared marking about the eyes which may be 
observed in all free livers of his class from 
the portrait of Jeffries downward, and which 
can be traced under various disguises of art, 
through the portraits of every Drinking 
Age. 
A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, ch. ii-v, xi, xxi, 

xxiv. 



282 



DICK SWIVELLER 



Dick Swiveller, a roystcrer, hut a good- 
hearted fellow. He was clerk to Sampson 
Brass and a friend of Fred Trent. He aspires 
to the hand of Little Nell in the hope of get- 
ting the fortune it is supposed her grandfather 
is hoarding up. After a severe illness, dur- 
ing which he is nursed by the " Marchioness, " 
the small servant in the house of Sampson 
Brass, he falls into an annuity of one hundred 
and fifty pounds a year and marries the 
Marchioness. 

He took occasion to apologize for any neg- 
ligence that might be perceptible in his dress 
on the ground that last night he had had " the 
Sun very strong in his eyes," by which ex- 
pression he was understood to convey in the 
most delicate manner possible the informa- 
tion that he had been extremely drunk. . . . 

It was perhaps not very unreasonable to 
suspect from what had already passed, that 
Mr. Swiveller was not quite recovered from 
the effects of the powerful sunlight to which 
he had made allusion; but if no such sus- 
picion had been awakened by his speech, his 
wiry hair, dull eyes, and sallow face, would 
still have been strong witnesses against him. 
His attire was not as he had himself hinted, 
remarkable for the nicest arrangement, but 
was in a state of disorder which strongly in- 
duced the idea that he had gone to bed in 
283 



DICK SWIVELLER 



it. It consisted of a brown body-coat with 
a great many brass buttons up the front and 
only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, 
a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and 
a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side 
foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The 
breast of his coat was ornamented with an 
outside pocket from which there peeped forth 
the cleanest end of a very large and very ill- 
favoured handkerchief; his dirty wristbands 
were pulled down as far as possible and os- 
tentatiously folded back over his cuffs ; he dis- 
played no gloves, and carried a yellow cane 
having at the top a bone hand with the sem- 
blance of a ring on its little finger and a black 
ball in its grasp. With all these personal 
advantages (to which may be added a strong 
savour of tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing 
greasiness of appearance) Mr. Swiveller leant 
back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the 
ceiling, and occasionally pitching his voice 
to the needful key, obliged the company with 
a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and 
then, in the middle of a note, relapsed into 
his former silence. . . . 

" I enter in this little book the names of 
the streets that I can't go down while the 
shops are open. This dinner to-day closes 
Long Acre. I bought a pair of boots in Great 
Queen Street l^st week, and made that no 
284 



MARK TAPLEY 



thoroughfare too. There's only one avenue 
to the Strand left open now, and I shall have 
to stop up that to-night v^^ith a pair of gloves. 
The roads are closing so fast in every direc- 
tion, that in about a month's time unless my 
aunt sends me a remittance, I shall have to 
go three or four miles out of town to get 
over the way." 

The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. ii, Hi, vii, vHi, 
xiii, xxi, xxiii, xxxiv-xxxviii, xlviii-l, Ivi- 
Ixvi, Ixxiii. 

Mark Tapley, hostler at Mrs. Lupin's Blue 
Dragon Inn, strong in the belief that he could 
*' come out strong" in circumstances that 
would make other men miserable. Life at 
the Blue Dragon is too cheerful, so he goes 
to^ London, meets Martin Chuzslewit and with 
him goes to America. They invest all their 
money in a iifty-acre lot in the city of Eden, 
and -find it a dismal fever-stricken swamp. 
Martin succumbs to fever. Mark nurses him, 
always "jolly," and when he in turn is down 
with it and can no longer speak he writes 
"jolly" on a slate. 

When both are recovered they return to 
England, and Mark marries Mrs. Lupin, 
changing the sign of the Inn to "The Jolly 
Tapley." 

A young fellow, of some five or six-and- 
285 



MARK TAPLEY 



twenty perhaps, dressed in such a free and 
fly-away fashion, that the long ends of his 
loose red neckcloth were streaming out be- 
hind him quite as often as before; and the 
bunch of bright winter berries in the button- 
hole of his velveteen coat, was as visible to 
Mr. Pinch's rearward observation, as if he had 
worn that garment wrong side foremost. . . 

Resolved in his usual phrase, to " come 
out strong" under disadvantageous circum- 
stances, he was the life and soul of the 
steerage, and made no more of stopping 
in the middle of a facetious conversation to 
go away and be excessively ill by himself, 
and afterwards come back in the very best 
and gayest of tempers to resume it, than if 
such a course of proceeding had been the 
commonest in the world. . . . 

It cannot be said that as his illness wore 
off, his cheerfulness and good nature in- 
creased, because they would hardly admit of 
augmentation; but his usefulness among the 
weaker members of the party was much en- 
larged; and at all times and seasons there he 
was exerting it. If a gleam of sun shone out 
of the dark sky, down Mark tumbled into the 
cabin, and presently up he came again with 
a woman in his arms, or half-a-dozen chil- 
dren, or a man, or a bed, or a saucepan, or 
a basket, or something animate or inanimate, 
286 



MARK TAPLEY 



that he thought would be the better for the 
air. If an hour or two of fine weather in 
the middle of the day, tempted those who 
seldom or never came on deck at other times, 
to crawl into the long-boat, or lie down upon 
the spare spars, and try to eat, there in the 
centre of the group was Mr. Tapley, handing 
about salt beef and biscuit, or dispensing tastes 
of grog, or cutting up the children's provisions 
with his pocket-knife, for their greater ease 
and comfort, or reading aloud from a ven- 
erable newspaper, or singing some roaring old 
song to a select party, or writing the begin- 
nings of letters to their friends at home for 
people who couldn't write, or cracking jokes 
with the crew, or nearly getting blown over 
the side, or emerging, half-drowned, from a 
shower of spray, or lending a hand some- 
where or other: but always doing something 
for the general entertainment. At night, 
when the cooking-fire was lighted on the deck, 
and the driving sparks that flew among the 
rigging, and the cloud of sails, seemed to 
menace the ship with certain annihilation by 
fire, in case the elements of air and water 
failed to compass her destruction; there again 
was Mr. Tapley, with his coat off and his shirt- 
sleeves turned up to his elbows, doing all 
kinds of culinary offices; compounding the 
strangest dishes ; recognised by every one as 
287 



SIM TAPPERTIT 



an established authority; and helping all par- 
ties to achieve something, which, left to them- 
selves, they never could have done, and never 
would have dreamed of. In short, there never 
was a more popular character than Mark Tap- 
ley became on board that noble and fast-sail- 
ing line-of-packet ship, the Screw; and he 
attained at last to such a pitch of universal 
admiration, that he began to have grave doubts 
within himself whether a man might reason- 
ably claim any credit for being jolly under 
such exciting circumstances. 
Martin Chuzdewit, ch. v, vii, vii-xv, xvii, 
xxi-xxiii, xxxiii-xxxv, xliii, xlviii, U, liii. 

Sim Tappertit is a full length picture of 
the London 'prentice hoy of the time. He 
was Gabriel Varden's apprentice, in love with 
his daughter Dolly, and the sworn enemy of 
his rival young Joe Willet. He was captain 
of the 'Prentice Knights, who vowed ven^ 
geance on their tyrant masters, and whose 
object was the restoration of their ancient 
rights and holidays. He took a leading part 
in the Gordon riots, in which his legs were 
crushed and he was otherwise wounded. He 
was imprisoned and released on two wooden 
legs, becomes a hoot black and takes to wife 
the widow of a collector of rags and hones, 
having cast off Miss Miggs for ever. 
288 



SIM TAPPERTIT 



[He] was * an old-fashioned, thin-faced, 
sleek-haired, sharp-nosed, small-eyed little fel- 
low, very little more than five feet high, and 
thoroughly convinced in his own mind that he 
was above the middle size; rather tall, in 
fact, than otherwise. Of his figure, which 
was well enough formed, though somewhat 
of the leanest, he entertained the highest ad- 
miration; and with his legs, which in knee- 
breeches, were perfect curiosities of littleness, 
he was enraptured to a degree amounting to 
enthusiasm. He also had some majestic, 
shadowy ideas, which had never been quite 
fathomed by his most intimate friends, con- 
cerning the power of his eye. Indeed he 
had been known to go so far as to boast that 
he could utterly quell and subdue the haugh- 
tiest beauty by a simple process, which he 
termed " eyeing her over ; " but it must be 
added, that neither of this faculty, nor of 
the power he claimed to have, through the 
same gift, of vanquishing and heaving down 
dumb animals, even in a rabid state, had he 
ever furnished evidence which could be 
deemed quite satisfactory and conclusive. . . 

In respect of dress and personal decoration, 
he had been seen, beyond dispute, to pull 
off ruffles of the finest quality at the corner 
of the street on Sunday nights, and to put 
them carefully in his pocket before return- 



TELLSON & CO. 



ing home; and it was quite notorious that on 
all great holiday occasions it was his habit; 
to exchange his plain steel knee-buckles for a 
pair of glittering paste, under cover of a 
friendly post, planted most conveniently in 
that same spot. Add to this that he was in 
years just twenty, in his looks much older, 
and in conceit at least two hundred; that 
he had no objection to be jested with, touch- 
ing his admiration of his master's daughter; 
and had even, when called upon at a certain 
obscure tavern to pledge the lady whom he 
honoured with this love, toasted, with many 
winks and leers, a fair creature whose Chris- 
tian name, he said, began with a D — ; — 
and as much is known of Sim Tappertit, as is 
necessary. 
Barnaby Rudge, ch. iv, vii-ix, xviii, xix, xxii, 

xxiv, xxvii, xxxi, xxxvi, xxxix, xlviii-Ui, 

lix, Ix, Ixii, Ixx, Ixxi, Ixxxii. 

Tellson & Co., an old and eminent firm 
of London Bankers. 

Tellson's bank by Temple Bar was an old- 
fashioned place even in the year seventeen 
hundred and eighty. It was very small, very 
dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was 
an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral 
attribute that the partners in the house were 
proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, 
290 



TELLSON & CO. 



proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommo- 
diousness. They were even boastful of its 
eminence in those particulars, and were fired 
by an express conviction that, if it were less 
objectionable, it would be less respectable. 
This was no passive belief, but an active 
weapon which they flashed at more convenient 
places of business. Tellson's (they said) 
wanted no elbow-room, Tellson's wanted no 
Hght, Tellson's wanted no embellishment. 
Noakes and Co.'s might, or Snooks Brothers* 
might ; but Tellson's, thank Heaven ! 

Any one of these partners would have dis- 
inherited his son on the question of rebuilding 
Tellson's. In this respect the House was 
made on a par with the Country; which did 
very often disinherit its sons for suggesting 
improvements in laws and customs that had 
long been highly objectionable, but were only 
the more respectable. 

Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was 
the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. 
After bursting open a door of idiotic ob- 
stinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you 
fell into Tellson's down two steps, and came 
to your senses in a miserable little shop, with 
two little counters, where the oldest of men 
made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled 
it, while they examined the signature by the 
dingiest of windows, which were always under 
291 



TELLSON & CO. 



a shower-bath of mud from Fleet-street, and 
which were made the dingier by their own 
iron bars proper, and the heavy shadow of 
Temple Bar. If your business necessitated 
your seeing " the House," you were put into 
a species of Condemned Hold at the back, 
where you meditated on a misspent life, until 
the House came with its hands in its pockets, 
and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal 
twilight. Your money came out of or went 
into wormy old wooden drawers, particles of 
which flew up your nose and down your 
throat when they were opened and shut. 
Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as if 
they were fast decomposing into rags again. 
Your plate was stowed away among the 
neighbouring cesspools, and evil communica- 
tions corrupted its good polish in a day or 
two. Your deeds got into extemporised 
strong rooms, made of kitchens and sculleries, 
and fretted all the fat out of their parch- 
ments into the banking-house air. Your 
lighter boxes of family papers went up-stairs 
into a Barmecide room, that always had a 
great dining-table in it and never had a 
dinner. 

A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, ch. Hi, iv; 
Book II, ch. i. Hi, vH, ix. 



292 



MONTAGUE TIGG 



Montague Tigg, a sharper, sponger, and 
adventurer, friend of Chevy Slyme, and sharer 
of his miserable neediness. Later he forms 
a swindling concern, with the high sounding 
title of The Anglo -Bengalee Disinterested 
Loan and Life Insurance Company, changing 
his name to Tigg Montague, Esq. Thieving 
on a grander scale than ever he becomes a 
man of showy importance in the city. 

He becomes acquainted with the attempt of 
Jonas Chuszlewit to poison his father and 
uses his knowledge to induce him to invest 
his own and his father-in-law's money in the 
concern. Jonas, however, kills him on the 
way, and the company goes to smash. 

Something which smelt like several damp 
umbrellas, a barrel of beer, a cask of warm 
brandy-and-water, and a small parlour-full of 
stale tobacco smoke, mixed. . . . 

The gentleman was of that order of ap- 
pearance, which is currently termed shabby- 
genteel, though in respect of his dress he can 
hardly be said to have been in any extremi- 
ties, as his fingers were a long way out of 
his gloves, and the soles of his feet were at 
an inconvenient distance from the upper 
leather of his boots. His nether garments 
were of a bluish gray — violent in its colours 
once, but sobered now by age and dinginess 
— and were so stretched and strained in a 
293 



MONTAGUE TIGG 



tough conflict between his braces and his 
straps, that they appeared every moment in 
danger of flying asunder at the knees. His 
coat, in colour blue and of a military cut, was 
buttoned and frogged, up to his chin. His 
cravat was, in hue and pattern, like one of 
those mantles which hair-dressers are accus- 
tomed to wrap about their clients, during the 
progress of the professional mysteries. His 
hat had arrived at such a pass that it would 
have been hard to determine whether it was 
originally white or black. But he wore a 
moustache — a shaggy moustache too: noth- 
ing in the meek and merciful way, but quite 
in the fierce and scornful style: the regular 
Satanic sort of thing — and he wore, besides, 
a vast quantity of unbrushed hair. He was 
very dirty and very jaunty; very bold and 
very mean; very swaggering and very slink- 
ing; very much like a man who might have 
been something better, and unspeakably like 
a man who deserved to be something worse. 

He had a world of jet-black shining hair 
upon his head, upon his cheeks, upon his chin, 
upon his upper lip. His clothes, symmetric- 
ally made, were of the newest fashion and 
the costliest kind. Flowers of gold and 
blue, and green and blushing red, were on his 
waistcoat; precious chains and jewels sparkled 
294 



MISS LUCRETIA TOX 



on his breast; his fingers, clogged with bril- 
liant rings, were as unwieldy as summer 
flies but newly rescued from a honey-pot. 
The daylight mantled in his gleaming hat and 
boots as in a polished glass. And yet, though 
changed his name, and changed his outward 
surface, it was Tigg. Though turned and 
twisted upside down, and inside out, as great 
men have been sometimes known to be; 
though no longer Montague Tigg, but Tigg 
Montague; still it was Tigg: the same Sa- 
tanic, gallant, military Tigg. The brass was 
burnished, lacquered, newly-stamped; yet it 
was the true Tigg metal notwithstanding. 
Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. iv, vii, xii, xiii, xxii, 
xxviii, xxxviii, xl-xliii, xliv, xlvii. 

Miss Lucretia Tox, a friend of Mrs. 
Chick, the sister of Mr. Domhey — for whom 
Major Joey Bagstock professed a great ad- 
miration, but her hopes, it is strongly sus- 
pected, were centred on Mr. Domhey himself. 

[She] was a long lean figure, wearing such 
a faded air that she seemed not to have been 
made in what linen-drapers call " fast col- 
ours " originally, and to have, by little and 
little, washed out. But for this she might 
have been described as the very pink of gen- 
eral propitiation and politeness. From a 
long habit of listening admiringly to every- 
295 



MISS LUCRETIA TOX 



thing that was said in her presence, and look- 
ing at the speakers as if she were mentally 
engaged in taking off impressions of their 
images upon her soul, never to part with the 
same but with life, her head had quite set- 
tled on one side. Her hands had contracted 
a spasmodic habit of raising themselves of 
their own accord as in involuntary admiration. 
Her eyes were liable to a similar affection. 
She had the softest voice that ever was heard ; 
and the nose, stupendously aquiline, had a 
little knob in the very centre or key-stone of 
the bridge, whence it tended downwards to- 
wards her face, as in an invincible determina- 
tion never to turn up at anything. 

Miss Tox's dress, though perfectly genteel 
and good, had a certain character of angular- 
ity and scantiness. She was accustomed to 
wear odd weedy little flowers in her bonnets 
and caps. Strange grasses were sometimes 
perceived in her hair; and it was observed by 
the curious, of all her collars, frills, tuckers, 
wristbands, and other gossamer articles — in- 
deed of everything she wore which had two 
ends to it intended to unite — that the two 
ends were never on good terms, and wouldn't 
quite meet without a struggle. She had furry 
articles for winter wear, as tippets, boas, and 
muffs, which stood up on end in a rampant 
manner, and were not at all sleek. She was 
296 



MR. TRABB 



much given to the carrying about of small 
bags with snaps to them, that went off like 
little pistols when they were shut up; and 
when full-dressed, she wore round her neck 
the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy 
old eye, with no approach to speculation in 
it. These and other appearances of a similar 
nature, had served to propagate the opinion, 
that Miss Tox was a lady of what is called a 
limited independence, which she turned to the 
best account. Possibly her mincing gait en- 
couraged the belief, and suggested that her 
clipping a step of ordinary compass into two 
or three, originated in her habit of making 
the most of everything. 

Domhey and Son, ch. i, it, v-viii, x, xviii, xx, 
xxix, xxxi, xxxvi, xxxvii, li, lix, Ixii. 

Mr. Trabb, the undertaker who had charge 
of the funeral of Mrs. Joe Gargery. 

Trabb and Co. had put in a funeral execu- 
tion and taken possession. Two dismally ab- 
surd persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting 
a crutch done up in a black bandage — as if 
that instrument could possibly communicate 
any comfort to anybody — were posted at the 
front door; and in one of them I recognised 
a postboy discharged from the Boar for turn- 
ing a young couple into a sawpit on their 
bridal morning, in consequence of intoxica- 
297 



MR. TRABB 



tion rendering it necessary for him to ride 
his horse clasped round the neck with both 
arms. All the children of the village, and 
most of the women^ were admiring these sable 
warders and the closed windows of the house 
and forge; and as I came up, one of the two 
warders (the postboy) knocked at the door — 
implying that I was far too much exhausted 
by grief, to have strength remaining to knock 
for myself. 

Another sable warder (a carpenter, who 
had once eaten two geese for a wager) opened 
the door, and showed me into the best par- 
lour. Here, Mr. Trabb had taken unto him- 
self the best table, and had got all the leaves 
up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, 
with the aid of a quantity of black pins. At 
the moment of my arrival, he had just finished 
putting somebody's hat into black long- 
clothes, like an African baby; so he held out 
his hand for mine. But I, misled by the ac- 
tion, and confused by the occasion, shook 
hands with him with every testimony of warm 
affection. . . . 

" Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all ! " cried Mr. 
Trabb in a depressed-business-like voice — 
" Pocket-handkerchiefs out ! We are ready ! " 

So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to 
our faces, as if our noses were bleeding and 
filed out two and two. . . . 
298 



THOMAS TRADDLES 



The remains of my poor sister had been 
brought round by the kitchen door, and, it be- 
ing a point of Undertaking ceremony that the 
six bearers must be stifled and blinded under 
a horrible black velvet housing with a white 
border, the whole looked like a blind monster 
with twelve human legs, shuffling and blunder- 
ing along under the guidance of two keepers 
— the postboy and his comrade. 

Great Expectations, ch. xix, xxx, xxxv. 

Thomas Traddles, one of Copperileld's 
schoolmates at Salem House. He fought his 
way through the world against great difficul- 
ties, hut was always cheerful. He was vic- 
timized by Micawher, whom he afterwards 
helped to expose Uriah Heep. After a long 
courtship he married " the dearest girl in the 
world" — taking the burden of her family on 
his shoulders, succeeds in his profession, and 
becomes a judge of high honor, and esteem. 

Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit 
that made his arms and legs like German sau- 
sages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the 
merriest and most miserable of all the boys. 
He was always being caned — I think he was 
caned every day that half-year, except one 
holiday Monday when he was only ruler'd on 
both hands — and was always going to write 
to his uncle about it, and never did. After 
299 



THOMAS TRADDLES 



laying his head on the desk for a little while, 
he would cheer up^ somehow, begin to laugh 
again, and draw skeletons all over his slate, 
before his eyes were dry, I used at first to 
wonder what comfort Traddles found in draw- 
ing skeletons; and for some time looked upon 
him as a sort of hermit, who reminded him- 
self by those symbols of mortality that can- 
ing couldn't last for ever. But I believe he 
only did it because they were easy, and didn't 
want any features. 

He was very honourable, Traddles was, and 
held it as a solemn duty in the boys to stand 
by one another. He suffered for this on 
several occasions ; and particularly once, when 
Steerforth laughed in church, and the beadle 
thought it was Traddles, and took him out. 
I see him now, going away in custody, de- 
spised by the congregation. He never said 
who was the real offender, though he smarted 
for it next day, and was imprisoned so many 
hours that he came forth with a whole church- 
yard-full of skeletons swarming all over his 
Latin Dictionary. But he had his reward. 
Steerforth said there was nothing of the 
sneak in Traddles, and we all felt that to be 
the highest praise. For my part, I could have 
gone through a good deal (though I was much 
less brave than Traddles, and nothing like 
so old) to have won such a recompense. 
300 



MR. — - TRENT 



David Copperiield, ch. vi. vii, ix, xxv, xxvii, 
^ xxviii, xxxiv, xxxvi, xxxviii, xli, xliii, 
xliv, xlviii, xlxix, li, liv, Ivii-Hx, Ixi, Ixii, 
Ixiv. 

Mr- Trent, Little NelVs Grand- 
father, owner of the old Curiosity Shop. 
Full of the desire to provide for his grand- 
daughter he becomes a confirmed gambler, 
borrows money from Quilp the dwarf, pledg- 
ing his stock for the loans. Reduced to his 
last penny he is sold up and turned out of 
doors, weak in mind and body. With his 
daughter he wanders about the country un- 
til at last they find an asylum through the 
goodness of the schoolmaster, Mr. Marton. 
Here Little Nell dies worn out with exposure 
and privation and the old man soon after fol- 
lows her. 

A little old man with long grey hair, whose 
face and figure as he held the light above his 
head and looked before him as he approached, 
I could plainly see. Though much altered 
by age, I fancied I could recognise in his 
spare and slender form something of that 
delicate mould which I had noticed in the 
child [little Nell]. Their bright blue eyes. 
were certainly alike, but his face was so 
deeply furrowed and so very full of care, that 
here all resemblance ceased. . . . Coupled 
301 



MR. TRENT. 



with something feeble and wandering in his 
manner, there were in his face marks of deep 
and anxious thought which convinced me that 
he could not be, 'as I had been at first in- 
clined to suppose, in a state of dotage or imbe- 
cility. . . . 

His brother, the single gentleman, thus tells 
the tale of his life before the opening of the 
story; — 

" There were once two brothers, who loved 
each other dearly. There was a disparity in 
their ages — some twelve years. . . . 
Wide as the interval between them was, how- 
ever, they became rivals too soon. The deep- 
est and strongest affection of both their hearts 
settled upon one object. 

" The youngest — there were reasons for 
his being sensitive and watchful — was the 
first to find this out. I will not tell you what 
misery he underwent, what agony of soul he 
knew, how great his mental struggle was. 
He had been a sickly child. His brother, pa- 
tient and considerate in the midst of his own 
high health and strength, had many and many 
a day denied himself the sports he loved, to 
sit beside his couch, telling him old stories 
till his pale face lighted up with an unwonted 
glow; to carry him in his arms to some 
green spot, where he could tend the poor pen- 
302 



MR. TRENT. 



sive boy as he looked upon the bright sum- 
mer day, and saw all nature healthy but him- 
self; to be in any way his fond and faithful 
tiurse. I may not dwell on all he did, to make 
the poor, weak creature love him, or my tale 
would have no end. But when the time of 
trial came, the younger brother's heart was 
full of those old days. Heaven strengthened 
it to repay the sacrifices of inconsiderate 
youth by one of thoughtful manhood. He left 
his brother to be happy. The truth never 
passed his lips, and he quitted the country, 
hoping to die abroad. 

" The elder brother married her. She was 
in Heaven before long, and left him with an 
infant daughter. . . . 

"In this daughter the mother lived again. 
You may judge with what devotion he who 
lost that mother almost in the winning, clung 
to this girl, her breathing image. She grew 
to womanhood, and gave her heart to one 
who could not know its worth. Well ! Her 
fond father could not see her pine and droop. 
He might be more deserving than he thought 
him. He surely might become so with a wife 
like her. He joined their hands, and they 
were married. 

" Through all the misery that followed this 
union; through all the cold neglect and un- 
deserved reproach; through all the poverty 
303 



MR. TRENT. 



he brought upon her; through all the strug- 
gles of their daily life, too mean and pitiful 
to tell, but dreadful to endure; she toiled on, 
in the deep devotion of her spirit, and in her 
better nature, as only women can. Her 
means and substance wasted ; her father nearly 
beggared by her husband's hand, and the 
hourly witness (for they lived now under one 
roof) of her ill-usage and unhappiness, — she 
never, but for him, bewailed her fate. Pa- 
tient, and upheld by strong affection to the 
last, she died a widow of some three weeks' 
date, leaving to her father's care two orphans ; 
one a son of ten or twelve years old ; the other 
a girl — such another infant child — the same 
in helplessness, in age, in form, in feature — 
as she had been herself when her young 
mother died. 

" The elder brother, grandfather to these 
two children, was now a broken man; crushed 
and borne down, less by the weight of years 
than by the heavy hand of sorrow. With the 
wreck of his possessions, he began to trade 
— in pictures first, and then in curious an- 
cient things. He had entertained a fondness 
for such matters from a boy, and the tastes he 
had cultivated were now to yield him an anx- 
ious and precarious subsistence. 

" The boy grew like his father in mind 
and person; the girl so like her mother, that 
304 



MR. TRENT. 



when the old man had her on his knee, and 
looked into her mild blue eyes, he felt as if 
awakening from a wretched dream, and his 
daughter were a little child again. The way- 
ward boy soon spurned the shelter of his roof, 
and sought associates more congenial to his 
taste. The old man and the child dwelt alone 
together. 

" It was then, when the love of two dead 
people who had been nearest and dearest to 
his heart, was all transferred to this slight 
creature; when her face, constantly before 
him, reminded him from hour to hour of the 
too early change he had seen in such another 
— of all the suffering he had watched and 
known, and all his child had undergone; 
when the young man's profligate and hardened 
course drained him of money as his father's 
had, and even sometimes occasioned them 
temporary privation and distress ; it was then 
that there began to beset him, and to be ever 
in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and 
want. He had no thought for himself in this. 
His fear was for the child. It was a spectre 
in'his house, and haunted him night and day." 

At length they found one day that he had 
risen early, and, with his knapsack on his 
back, his staff in hand, her own straw hat, 
and little basket full of such things as she 
had been used to carry, was gone. As they 
305 



MR. TRENT. 



were making ready to pursue him, far and 
wide, a frightened schoolboy came who had 
seen him but a moment before, sitting in the 
church — upon her grave, he said. 

They hastened there, and going softly to 
the door, espied him in the attitude of one 
who waited patiently. They did not disturb 
him then, but kept a watch upon him all that 
day. When it grew quite dark, he rose and 
returned home, and went to bed, murmuring 
to himself, " She will come to-morrow ! " 

Upon the morrow he was there again from 
sunrise until night; and still at night he laid 
him down to rest, and muttered, " She will 
come to-morrow ! " 

And thenceforth, every day, and all day 
long, he waited at her grave for her. How 
many pictures of new journeys over pleasant 
country, of resting-places under the free broad 
sky, of rambles in the fields and woods, and 
paths not often trodden — how many tones 
of that one well-remembered voice — how 
many glimpses of the form, the fluttering 
dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the 
wind — how many visions of what had been, 
and what he hoped was yet to be — rose up 
before him, in the old, dull, silent church ! 
He never told them what he thought, or where 
he went. He would sit with them at night, 
pondering with a secret satisfaction, they 
306 



LITTLE NELL TRENT 



could see, upon the flight that he and she 
would take before night came again; and 
still they would hear him whisper in his 
prayers, " Oh ! Let her come to-morrow ! " 

The last time was on a genial day in 
spring. He did not return at the usual hour, 
and they went to seek him. He was lying 
dead upon the stone. 

They laid him by the side of her whom he 
had loved so well; and, in the church where 
they had often prayed, and mused, and lin- 
gered hand in hand, the child and the old man 
slept together. 
The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. i-iii, ix, xi, xii, 

xv-xix, xxiv-xxxii, xlii-xlvi. Hi, liv, Iv, 

Ixxi, Ixxii. 

Little Nell Trent lived alone with her 
Grandfather, a confirmed gambler. When 
turned into the streets a beggar and an imbe- 
cile she accompanies him in his wanderings, 
caring tenderly for him and ever on the watch 
to prevent him from succumbing to his ruling 
passion. They fall into the hands of various 
people, among them the Jarleys and their wax- 
works, by whom Little Nell is engaged to 
point out the -figures, but always temptation, 
or the danger of being taken up as vagrants 
and of separation from her grandfather, keeps 
them moving on. At last they meet Mr. Mar- 
307 



LITTLE NELL TRENT 



ton, a schoolmaster, to whom Nell confides 
her story, and he provides them with a pleas- 
ant home and light employment, which brings 
them a simple living. But the exposure and 
privation she has gone through have been too 
much for the delicate child and she slowly 
sinks and dies. 

A pretty little girl who begged to be di- 
rected to a certain street at a considerable 
distance. . . . 

She put her hand in mine as confidingly as 
if she had known me from her cradle, and we 
trudged away together: the little creature ac- 
commodating her pace to mine, and rather 
seeming to lead and take care of me than I 
to be protecting her. I observed that every 
now and then she stole a curious look at my 
face as if to make quite sure that I was not 
deceiving her, and that these glances (very 
sharp and keen they were too) seemed to in- 
crease her confidence at every repetition. 

For my part, my curiosity and interest were 
at least equal to the child's, for child she cer- 
tainly was, although I thought it probable 
from what I could make out, that her very 
small and delicate frame imparted a peculiar 
youthfulness to her appearance. Though 
more scantily attired than she might have 
been she was dressed with perfect neatness, 
and betrayed no marks of poverty or neglect. 



308 



LITTLE NELL TRENT 



For she was dead. There, upon her Httle 
bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was 
no marvel now. 

She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and 
calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to 
look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from 
the hand of God, and waiting for the breath 
of life; not one who had lived and suffered 
death. 

Her couch was dressed with here and there 
some winter berries and green leaves, gath- 
ered in a spot she had been used to favour. 
" When I die, put near me something that has 
loved the light, and had the sky above it al- 
ways." Those were her words. 

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble 
Nell was dead. Her little bird — a poor slight 
thing the pressure of a finger would have 
crushed — was stirring nimbly in its cage; 
and the strong heart of its child-mistress was 
mute and motionless for ever. 

Where were the traces of her early cares, 
her sufferings, and fatigues ? All gone. Sor- 
row was dead indeed in her, but peace and 
perfect happiness were born ; imagined in her 
tranquil beauty and profound repose. 

And still her former self lay there, unal- 
tered in this change. Yes. The old fireside 
had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had 
passed like a dream through haunts of misery 
309 



LITTLE NELL TRENT 



and care ; at the door of the poor schoohnaster 
on the summer evening before the furnace 
fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bed- 
side of the dying boy, there had been the 
same mild loving look. So shall we know the 
angels in their majesty, after death. . . . 
She was dead and past all help, or need of 
it. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill 
with life, even while her own was waning 
fast — the garden she had tended — the eyes 
she had gladdened — the noiseless haunts of 
many a thoughtful hour — the paths she had 
trodden as it were but yesterday — could 
know her no more. 

She had been dead two days. They were 
all about her at the time, knowing that the 
end was drawing on. She died soon after 
daybreak. They had read and talked to her 
in the earlier portion of the night, but as the 
hours crept on, she sank to sleep. They could 
tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, 
that they were of her journey ings with the 
old man; they were of no painful scenes, but 
of those who had helped and used them kindly, 
for she often said " God bless you ! " with 
great fervour. Waking, she never wandered 
in her mind but once, and that was of beauti- 
ful music which she said was in the air. God 
knows. It may have been. 

Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet 
310 



LITTLE NELL TRENT 



sleep, she begged that they would kiss her 
once again. That done, she turned to the old 
man with a lovely smile upon her face — such, 
they said, as they had never seen, and never 
could forget — and clung with both her arms 
about his neck. They did not know that she 
was dead, at first. 

She had spoken very often of the two sis- 
ters, who, she said, were like dear friends to 
her. She wished they could be told how much 
she thought about them, and how she had 
watched them as they walked together, by the 
river side at night. She would like to see 
poor Kit, she had often said of late. She 
wished there was somebody to take her love 
to Kit. And even then, she never thought or 
spoke about him, but with something of her 
old, clear, merry laugh. 

For the rest, she had never murmured or 
complained; but, with a quiet mind, and man- 
ner quite unaltered — save that she every day 
became more earnest and more grateful to 
them — faded like the light upon a summer's 
evening. . . . 

Oh ! it is hard to take to heart the lesson 
that such deaths will teach, but let no man 
reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and 
is a mighty, universal Truth. When Death 
strikes down the innocent and young, for 
every fragile form from which he lets the 
311 



MISS BETSEY TROTWOOD 

panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in 
shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk 
the world, and bless it. Of every tear that 
sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, 
some good is born, some gentler nature comes. 
In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright 
creations that defy his power, and his dark 
path becomes a way of light to Heaven. 
The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. i-vi, ix-xii, xiv- 
xix, xxiv-xxxii, xlii-xlvi, liii-lv„ Ixxi, Ixii. 

Miss Betsey Trotwood, David Copperfield's 
Great-Aunt. Disappointed that he was not 
horn a girl, she for years ignored him and his 
family. David runs away from his uncongen- 
ial employment in London and iinds her at 
Dover. She adopts him, calls him Trotwood 
Copperiield, educates him and articles him to 
Spenlow & Jorkins. Her dissolute husband 
returns and blackmails her, her fortune is lost 
in the wreck of Mr. WickHeld's affairs, but 
recovered later by Mr. Micawber's exposure 
of Uriah Heep. Through all this she keeps 
a stout heart and a stern exterior. Although 
eccentric in many ways, as shown in her aver- 
sion to donkeys on the green in front of her 
house, she is a character of solid worth and 
sterling goodness, and as years go on she be- 
comes softer in manner and allows her heart 
to speak more freely. 

212 



MISS BETSEY TROTWOOD 



Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor 
mother always called her, when she suffi- 
ciently overcame her dread of this formid- 
able personage to mention her at all (which 
was seldom), had been married to a husband 
younger than herself, who was very hand- 
some, except in the sense of the homely adage, 
"handsome is, that handsome does "— for he 
was strongly suspected of having beaten Miss 
Betsey, and even of having once, on a dis- 
puted question of supplies, made some hasty 
but determined arrangements to throw her out 
of a two pair of stairs' window. These evi- 
dences of an incompatibility of temper in- 
duced Miss Betsey to pay him off, and effect 
a separation by mutual consent. He went to 
India with his capital, and there, according to 
a wild legend in our family, he was once 
seen riding an elephant, in company with a 
Baboon; but I think it must have been a 
Baboo — or a Begum. Anyhow, from India 
tidings of his death reached home, within ten 
years. How they affected my aunt, nobody 
knew; for immediately upon the separation 
she took her maiden name again, bought a 
cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long 
way off, established herself there as a single 
woman with one servant, and was understood 
to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an in- 
flexible retirement. 

313 



MISS BETSEY TROTWOOD 

My father had once been a favourite of 
hers, I believe ; but she was mortally affronted 
by his marriage, on the ground that my 
mother was " a wax doll." She had never 
seen my mother, but she knew her to be not 
yet twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never 
met again. He was double my mother's age 
when he married, and of but a delicate con- 
stitution. He died a year afterwards, and, 
as I have said, six months before I came into 
the world. . . . 

My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but 
by no means ill-looking. There was an in- 
flexibility in her face, in her voice, in her 
gait and carriage, amply sufficient to account 
for the effect she had made upon a gentle 
creature like my mother; but her features 
were rather handsome than otherwise, though 
unbending and austere. I particularly noticed 
that she had a very quick, bright eye.. Her 
hair, which was grey, was arranged in two 
plain divisions, under what I believe would 
be called a mob-cap : I mean a cap, much more 
common then than now, with side-pieces fas- 
tening under the chin. Her dress was of a 
lavender colour, and perfectly neat; but scan- 
tily made, as if she desired to be as little en- 
cumbered as possible. I remember that I 
thought it, in form, more like a riding-habit 
with the superfluous skirt cut off, than any- 
314 



MR. TULKINGHORN 



thing else. She wore at her side a gentle- 
man's gold watch, if I might judge from its 
size and make, with an appropriate chain and 
seals; she had some linen at her throat not 
unlike a shirt collar and things at her wrists 
like shirt wrist-bands. 
David CopperReld, ch. ii, xUi-xv, xvii, xix, 

xxiii-xxv, xxxvii-xl, xliii-xh, xlvi-xlix, 

li-lv, Ivii, lix, Ix, Ixiv. 

Mr. Tulkinghorn, the legal adviser of Sir 
Leicester Dedlock. He learns the secret of 
Lady Dedlock and on his informing her of 
the fact and of his intention to reveal it to 
Sir Leicester she ilees from her home and 
dies. Immediately after he is murdered in his 
own house by Mademoiselle Hortense, who 
had been in his employ in unearthing Lady 
Dedlock's past. 

An old-fashioned old gentleman, attorney- 
at-law, and eke solicitor of the High Court 
of Chancery, who has the honour of acting 
as legal adviser of the Dedlocks, and has as 
many cast-iron boxes in his office with that 
name outside, as if the present baronet were 
the coin of the conjuror's trick, and were 
constantly being juggled through the whole 
set. . . . 

The old gentleman is rusty to look at, but 
is reputed to have made good thrift out of 
315 



MR. TULKINGHORN 



aristocratic marriage settlements and aristo- 
cratic wills, and to be very rich. He is sur- 
rounded by a mysterious halo of family confi- 
dences; of which he is known to be the silent 
depositary. There are noble Mausoleums 
rooted for centuries in retired glades of parks, 
among the growing timber and the fern, which 
perhaps hold fewer noble secrets than walk 
abroad among men, shut up in the breast of 
Mr. Tulkinghorn. He is of what is called 
the old school — a phrase generally meaning 
any school that seems never to have been 
young — and wears knee breeches tied with 
ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. One pe- 
culiarity of his black clothes, and of his black 
stockings, be they silk or worsted, is, that they 
never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive to any 
glancing light, his dress is like himself. He 
never converses, when not professionally con- 
sulted. He is found sometimes, speechless 
but quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables 
in great country houses, and near doors of 
drawing-rooms, concerning which the fashion- 
able intelligence is eloquent: where everybody 
knows him, and where half the Peerage stops 
to say " How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn ? " 
He receives these salutations with gravity, 
and buries them along with the rest of his 
knowledge. 

Bleak House, ch. ii, vii, x-xii, xv, xvi, xxii, 
316 



MR. TURVEYDROP 



xxiv, xxvii, xxix, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxvi, xl- 
xliii, xliv, xlvii, xlviii. 

Mr. Turveydrop, the father of Prince Tur- 
veydrop, who married Caddy Jellyby. He 
was a very gentlemanly man celebrated almost 
everywhere for his " deportment " and a great 
admirer of " The first gentleman in Europe," 
King George IV. He was a very model of 
a gentlemanly " do-nothing " — and was al- 
ways content to live upon his family rather 
than work himself. 

He was a fat old gentleman with a false 
complexion, false teeth, false whiskers, and a 
wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a 
padded breast to his coat, which only wanted 
a star or a broad blue ribbon to be complete. 
He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got 
up, and strapped down, as much as he could 
possibly bear. He had such a neckcloth on 
(puffing his very eyes out o£ their natural 
shape), and his chin and even his ears so 
sunk into it, that it seemed as though he must 
inevitably double up, if it were cast loose. 
He had, under his arm, a hat of great size and 
weight, shelving downward from the crown to 
the brim; and in his hand a pair of white 
gloves, with which he flapped it, as he stood 
poised on one leg, in a high shouldered, round- 
elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. 
317 



MR. TURVEYDROP 



He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a 
snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, 
he had everything but any touch of nature; 
he was not like youth, he was not like age, he 
was like nothing in the world but a model of 
Deportment. . . . 

He had married a meek little dancing-mis- 
tress, with a tolerable connection (having 
never in his life before done anything but de- 
port himself), and had worked her to death, 
or had, at the best, suffered her to work her- 
self to death, to maintain him in thos,e ex- 
penses which were indispensable to his posi- 
tion. At once to exhibit his Deportment to 
the best models, and to keep the best models 
constantly before himself, he had found it 
necessary to frequent all public places of fash- 
ionable and lounging resort; to be seen at 
Brighton and elsewhere at fashionable times ; 
and to lead an idle life in the very best 
clothes. To enable him to do this, the affec- 
tionate little dancing-mistress had toiled and 
laboured, and would have toiled and laboured 
to that hour, if her strength had lasted so 
long. For, the mainspring of the story was, 
that, in spite of the man's absorbing selfish- 
ness, his wife (overpowered by his Deport- 
ment) had, to the last, believed in him, and 
had, on her death-bed, in the most moving 
terms, confided him to their son as one who had 
318 



DOLLY VARDEN 



an inextinguishable claim upon him, and 
whom he could never regard with too much 
pride and deference. The son, inheriting his 
mother's belief, and having the Deportment 
always before him, had lived and grown in 
the same faith, and now, at thirty years of age, 
worked for his father twelve hours a day, and 
looked up to him with veneration on the old 
imaginary pinnacle. 

Bleak House, ch. xiv, xxiii, xxx, xxxviii, I, 
Ivii. 

Dolly Varden, daughter of Gabriel Far- 
den, the locksmith, adored by Sim Tapper- 
tit, and beloved by Joe Willet, who, she finally 
marries after, by her coquetry, and his fath- 
er's treatment he had been driven abroad, 
where he lost an arm "at the defence of the 
Salwanners in America, where the war is," 
to the never-dying wonder of his unimagi- 
native parent. 

As to Dolly, there she was again, the very 
pink and pattern of good looks, in a smart 
little cherry-coloured mantle, with a hood of 
the same drawn over her head, and upon the 
top of that hood, a little straw hat trimmed 
with cherry-coloured ribbons, and worn the 
merest trifle on one side — just enough in 
short to make it the wickedest and most pro- 
voking head-dress that ever malicious mil- 
319 



DOLLY VARDEN 



liner devised. And not to speak of the man- 
ner in which these cherry-coloured decora- 
tions brightened her eyes, or vied with her 
lips, or shed a new bloom on her face, she 
wore such a cruel little muff, and such a heart- 
rending pair of shoes, and was surrounded and 
hemmed in, as it were, by aggravations. . . . 
When and where was there ever such a 
plump, roguish, comely, bright-eyed, entic- 
ing, bewitching, captivating, maddening little 
puss in all this world, as Dolly ! What was 
the Dolly of five years ago, to the Dolly of 
that day ! How many coach-makers, saddlers, 
cabinet-makers, and professors of other useful 
arts, had deserted their fathers, mothers, sis- 
ters, brothers, and, most of all, their cousins, 
for the love of her ! How many unknown 
gentlemen — supposed to be of mighty for- 
tunes, if not titles — had waited round the 
corner after dark, and tempted Miggs the in- 
corruptible, with golden guineas, to deliver 
offers of marriage folded up in love-letters ! 
How many disconsolate fathers and substan- 
tial tradesmen had waited on the locksmith 
for the same purpose, with dismal tales of 
how their sons had lost their appetites, and 
taken to shut themselves up in dark bedrooms, 
and wandering in desolate suburbs with pale 
faces, and all because of Dolly Varden's love- 
liness and cruelty ! How many young men, 
320 



DOLLY VARDEN 



in all previous times of unprecedented steadi- 
ness, had turned suddenly wild and wicked 
for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of 
unrequited love, taken to wrench off door- 
knockers, and invert the boxes of rheumatic 
watchmen ! How had she recruited the king's 
service, both by sea and land, through ren- 
dering desperate his loving subjects between 
the ages of eighteen and twenty-five! How 
many young ladies had publicly professed, 
with tears in their eyes, that for their tastes 
she was much too short, too tall, too bold, too 
cold, too stout, too thin, too fair, too dark — 
too everything but handsome ! How many old 
ladies, taking counsel together, had thanked 
Heaven their daughters were not like her, and 
had hoped she might come to no harm, 
and had thought she would come to no good, 
and had wondered what people saw in her, 
and had arrived at the conclusion that she 
was " going off " in her looks, or had never 
come on in them, and that she was a thorough 
imposition and a popular mistake ! 

And yet here was this same Dolly Varden, 
so whimsical and hard to please that she was 
Dolly Varden still, a.l smiles and dimples 
and pleasant looks, and caring no more for 
the fifty or sixty young fellows who at that 
very moment were breaking their hearts to 
marry her, than if so many oysters had been 
crossed in love and opened afterwards. 
321 



GABRIEL VARDEN 



Barnaby Rudge, ch. iv, xiii, xix-xxii, xxvii, 
xxxi, lix, Ixx, Ixxi. 

Gabriel Varden, Dolly Varden*s father, a 
frank, honest, hearty locksmith in charity 
with all mankind. 

A round, red-faced, sturdy yeoman, with a 
double chin, and a voice husky with good liv- 
ing, good sleeping, good humour, and good 
health. He was past the prime of life, but 
Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, 
though he tarries for none of his children, 
often lays his hand lightly upon those who 
have used him well; making them old men 
and women inexorably enough, but leaving 
their hearts and spirits young and in full 
vigour. With such people the grey head is 
but the impression of the old fellow's hand in 
giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle 
but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well- 
spent life. [He was] bluff, hale, hearty, and 
in a green old age : at peace with himself, and 
evidently disposed to be so with all the world. 
Although muffled up in divers coats and hand- 
kerchiefs — one of which, passed over his 
crown and tied in a convenient crease of his 
double chin, secured his three-cornered hat 
and bob-wig from blowing off his head — 
there was no disguising his plump and com- 
fortable figure; neither did certain dirty fin- 
322 



MRS. VARDEN 



ger-marks upon his face give it any other than 
an odd and comical expression, through which 
its natural good humour shone with undimin- 
ished lustre. 

Barnaby Rudge, ch. ii-vii, xiii, xiv, xix, xxi, 
xxii, xxvi, xxvii, xli, xliii, U, Ixiii, Ixiv, 
Ixxi, Ixxii, Ixxiv, Ixxvi, Ixxix, Ixxx, Ixxxii. 

Mrs. Varden, wife of Gabriel Varden and 
mother of Dolly, 

Mrs. Varden was a lady of what is com- 
monly called an uncertain temper — a phrase 
which being interpreted signifies a temper tol- 
erably certain to make everybody more or less 
uncomfortable. Thus it generally happened, 
that when other people were merry, Mrs. Var- 
den was dull ; and that when other people were 
dull, Miss Warden was disposed to be amaz- 
ingly cheerful. Indeed the worthy house-wife 
was of such a capricious nature, that she not 
only attained a higher pitch of genius than 
Macbeth, in respect of her ability to be wise, 
amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neu- 
tral in an instant, but would sometimes ring the 
changes backwards and forwards on all possible 
moods and flights in one short quarter of an 
hour; performing, as it were, a kind of triple 
bob major on the peal of instruments in the fe- 
male belfry, with a skilfulness and rapidity of 
execution that astonished all who heard her. 
32Z 



MR. VHOLES 



It had been observed in this good lady (who 
did not want for personal attractions, being 
plump and buxom to look at, though like her 
fair daughter, somewhat short in stature) 
that this uncertainty of disposition strength- 
ened and increased with her temporal pros- 
perity; and divers wise men and matrons, on 
friendly terms with the locksmith and his fam- 
ily, even went so far as to assert, that a 
tumble down some half-dozen rounds in the 
world's ladder — such as the breaking of the 
bank in which her husband kept his money, 
or some little fall of that kind — would be 
the making of her, and could hardly fail to 
render her one of the most agreeable com- 
panions in existence. 
Barnaby Rudge, ch. iv, vii, xiii, xix, xxi, xxii, 

xxvii, xxxvi, xli, xlii, H, Ixxi, Ixxii, Ixxx, 

Ixxxii. 

Mr. Vholes, the solicitor chosen by Rich- 
ard Carstone to represent his cause in the case 
of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, a man who is al- 
ways '' putting his shoulder to the wheel " with 
but little result — except that of pocketing his 
fees. He has "an inward manner of speech 
and a bloodless quietude.'* 

A sallow man with pinched lips that looked 
as if they were cold, a red eruption here and 
there upon his face, tall and thin, about fifty 
324 



MR. VHOLES 



years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. 
Dressed in black, black-gloved, and buttoned 
to the chin, there was nothing so remarkable 
in him as a lifeless manner, and a slow fixed 
way he had of looking. . . . 

Mr. Vholes, quiet and unmoved, as a man 
of so much respectability ought to be, takes 
off his close black gloves as if he were skin- 
ning his hands, lifts off his tight hat as if 
he were scalping himself, and sits down at his 
desk. The client throws his hat and gloves 
upon the ground — tosses them anywhere, 
without looking after them or caring where 
they go ; flings himself into a chair, half sigh- 
ing and half groaning; rests his aching head 
upon his hand, and looks the portrait of 
Young Despair. . . . 

Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He 
has not a large business, but he is a very 
respectable man. He is allowed by the 
greater attorneys who have made good for- 
tunes, or are making them, to be a most re- 
spectable man. He never misses a chance in 
his practice; which is a mark of respectabil- 
ity. He never takes any pleasure; which is 
another mark of respectability. He is re- 
served and serious; which is another mark of 
respectability. His digestion is impaired, 
which is highly respectable. And he is mak- 
ing hay of the grass which is flesh, for his 
325 



MISS WADE 



three daughters. And his father is dependent 
on him in the Vale of Taunton. . . . 
Bleak House, ch. xxxvii, xxxix, xlv, li, Ixi, 
Ixii, Ixv. 

Miss Wade, a woman of a sullen and un- 
governable temper, full of fancied wrongs, 
and a confirmed self-tormentor. Deceived by 
the man she loved, she became incurably 
soured. Rigand employed her in some of his 
rascally schemes and she induced Tatty- 
coram to leave her friends — the M eagles' s. 
But she repented and returned to them. 

The shadow in which she sat, falling like 
a gloomy veil across her forehead, accorded 
very well with the character of her beauty. 
One could hardly see the face, so still and 
scornful, set off by the arched dark eyebrows, 
and the folds of dark hair, without wonder- 
ing what its expression would be if a change 
came over it. That it could soften or re- 
lent, appeared next to impossible. That it 
could deepen into anger or any extreme of 
defiance, and that it must change in that di- 
rection when it changed at all, would have 
been its peculiar impression upon most ob- 
servers. It was dressed and trimmed into no 
ceremony of expression. Although not an 
open face, there was no pretence in it. I 
am self-contained and self-reliant; your opin- 
326 



TONY WELLER 



ion is nothing to me; I have no interest in 
you, care nothing for you, and see and hear 
you with indifference. This it said plainly. 
It said so in the proud eyes, in the lifted nos- 
tril, in the handsome, but compressed and 
even cruel mouth. Cover either two of those 
channels of expression, and the third would 
have said so still. Mask them all, and the 
mere turn of the head would have shown an 
unsubduable nature. 

Little Dorrit, Book I, ch. ii, xvi, xxvii, xxviii; 
Book II, ch. ix, X, XX, xxi, xxxiii. 

Tony Weller, father of Samuel Weller, 
who was inveigled into marriage by a buxom 
widow who keeps the Marquis of Granby pub- 
lic house. Hence his advice to his son to 
" beware of vidders." He was a true type of 
the stage coachman that nourished in England 
in pre-railway days. 

In a small room in the vicinity of the stable- 
yard ... sat Mr. Weller senior, prepar- 
ing himself for his journey to London. He 
was sitting in an excellent attitude for having 
his portrait taken; and here it is. 

It is very possible that at some earlier 
period of his career, Mr. Weller's profile might 
have presented a bold, and determined outline. 
His face, however, had expanded under the 
influence of good living, and a disposition re- 
Z^7 



TONY WELL^iR 



markable for resignation; aid its bold fleshy 
curves had so far extended beyond the limits 
originally assigned them, that unless you took 
a full view of his countenance in front, it 
was difficult to distinguish more than the ex- 
treme tip of a very rubicund nose. His chin, 
from the same cause, had acquired the grave 
and imposing form which is generally de- 
scribed by prefixing the word " double " to that 
expressive feature, and his complexion ex- 
hibited that peculiarly mottled combination of 
colours which is only to be seen in gentlemen 
of his profession, and underdone roast beef. 
Round his neck he wore a crimson travelling 
shawl, which merged into his chin by such 
imperceptible gradations, that it was difficult 
to distinguish the folds of the one, from the 
folds of the other. Over this, he mounted 
a long waistcoat of a broad pink-striped pat- 
tern, and over that again, a wide-skirted green 
coat, ornamented with large brass buttons, 
whereof the two which garnished the waist, 
were so far apart, that no man had ever be- 
held them both, at the same time. His hair, 
which was short, sleek, and black, was just 
visible beneath the capacious brim of a low- 
crowned brown hat. His legs were encased 
in knee-cord breeches, and painted top-boots: 
and a copper watch-chain terminating in one 
seal, and a key of the same material, dangled 
loosely from his capacious waist-band. 
328 



MR. JOHN WEMMICK 



Pickwick Papers, ch. xx, xxii, xxiii, xxvi, 
xxxiii, xxxiv, xliii, xlv, Hi, Iv, Ivi. 

Mr. John Wemmick, the conMential clerk 
of the criminal lawyer Mr. Jaggers. His 
main idea is the securing and taking care of 
''portable property/* Beneath a hard and 
ainty exterior he is the kindest of men at 
heart, devoting himself to the comfort of his 
venerable father, and indulging in many pleas- 
antries and playful ways of which his ap- 
parently improptu marriage with Miss Skif- 
Uns may be cited as an example. He helped 
and befriended Pip in many ways. 

A dry man, rather short in stature, with a 
square wooden face, whose expression seemed 
to have been imperfectly chipped out with a 
dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in 
it that might have been dimples, if the ma- 
trial had been softer and the instrument finer, 
but which, as it was, were only dints. The 
chisel had made three or four of these at- 
tempts at embellishment over his nose, but 
had given them up without an effort to smooth 
them off. I judged him to be a bachelor from 
the frayed condition of his linen, and he ap- 
peared to have sustained a good many bereave- 
ments; for he wore at least four mourning 
rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and 
a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on 
329 



AGNES WICKFIELD 



it. I noticed, too, that several rings and seals 
hung at his watch chain, as if he were quite 
laden with remembrances of departed friends. 
He had glittering eyes — small, keen, and 
black — and thin wide mottled lips. He had 
had them, to the best of my belief, from forty 
to fifty years. 

Great Expectations, ch. xx, xxi, xxiv-xxvi, 
xxxii, xxxvi, xxxvU, xlv, xlviii, U, Iv. 

Agnes Wickfield, Mr. WickReld's daughter 
and housekeeper. The lifelong friend and 
faithful advisor of Copperiield, whose second 
wife she becomes after the death of Dora. 

Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner 
of the panelled wall, and a girl of about my 
own age came quickly out and kissed him. 
On her face, I saw immediately the placid and 
sweet expression of the lady whose picture 
had looked at me down-stairs. It seemed to 
my imagination as if the portrait had grown 
womanly, and the original remained a child. 
Although her face was quite bright and happy, 
there was a tranquillity about it, and about 
her — a quiet, good, calm spirit — that I never 
have forgotten; that I never shall forget. 

This was his little housekeeper, his daughter 
Agnes, Mr. Wickfield said. When I heard 
how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, 
330 



AGNES WICKFIELD 



I guessed what the one motive of his life 
was. 

She had a Httle basket-trifle hanging at her 
side, with keys in it; and looked as staid and 
as discreet a housekeeper as the old house 
could have. She listened to her father as he 
told her about me, with a pleasant face; and 
when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt 
that we should go up-stairs and see my room. 
We all went together, she before us: and a 
glorious old room it was, with more oak 
beams, and diamond panes; and the broad 
balustrade going all the way up to it. 

I cannot call to mind where or when, in my 
childhood, I had seen a stained-glass window 
in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. 
But I know that when I saw her turn round, 
in the grave light of the old staircase, and 
wait for us, above, I thought of that window; 
and that I associated something of its tran- 
quil brightness with Agnes Wickfield ever 
afterwards. . . . 

We stood together in the same old-fashioned 
window at night, when the moon was shin- 
ing; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to 
it ; I followed her glance. Long miles of road 
then opened out before my mind; and, toiling 
on, I saw a ragged wayworn boy forsaken and 
neglected, who should come to call even the 
heart now beating against mine, his own. 
331 



MR. WICKFIELD 



David Copperfield, ch. xv-xix, xxiv, xxxiv, 
XXXV, xxxix, xlii, xliii, Uii-liv, Ivii, Iviii, Ix, 
Ixii-lxiv. 

, Mr. Wickfield, a Canterbury lawyer, Miss 
Trotwood's agent and friend. The father of 
Agnes — David Copperdeld's second wife. 
His clerk and partner, Uriah Heep, nearly 
ruined him, taking advantage of his absorp- 
tion in grief for the loss of his wife, and 
his over-addiction to the wine-bottle, but 
Micawber, whom he tried to make his ac- 
complice, exposed Heep, and saved the repu- 
tation and the life of Mr. WickHeld. 

His hair was quite white, though his eye- 
brows were still black. He had a very agree- 
able face, and, I thought, was handsome. 
There was a certain richness in his complex- 
ion, which I had been long accustomed, under 
Peggotty's tuition, to connect with port wine; 
and I fancied it was in his voice too, and 
referred his growing corpulency to the same 
cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue 
coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen trousers ; 
and his fine frilled shirt and cambric neck- 
cloth looked unusually soft and white, remind- 
ing my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of the 
plumage on the breast of a swan. . . . 

I had not seen Mr. Wickfield for some time. 
I was prepared for a great change in him, 
332 



JOHN WILLET 



after what I had heard from Agnes, but his 
appearance shocked me. 

It was not that he looked many years older, 
though still dressed with the old scrupulous 
cleanliness ; or that there was an unwholesome 
ruddiness upon his face; or that his eyes were 
full and bloodshot; or that there was a nerv- 
ous trembling in his hand, the cause of which 
I knew, and had for some years seen at work. 
It was not that he had lost his good looks, 
or his old bearing of a gentleman — for that 
he had not — but the thing that struck me 
most was, that with the evidences of his na- 
tive superiority still upon him, he should sub- 
mit himself to that crawling impersonation 
of meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of 
the two natures, in their relative positions, 
Uriah's of power, and Mr. Wickfield's of 
dependence, was a sight more painful to me 
than I can express. If I had seen an Ape 
taking command of a Man, I should hardly 
have thought it a more degrading spectacle. 
He appeared to be only too conscious of him- 
self. When he came in, he stood still; and 
with his head bowed, as if he felt it. 
David Copperiield, ch. xv, xvii, xix, xxxv, 

xxxix, xlii, liii, liv, Ix. 

John Willet, landlord of the Maypole Inn 
at Chigwell, father of Joe, whom he treated as 
333 



JOHN WILLET 



a boy when he grew up to he a young man. 
Bullied, badgered, worried, fretted and brow- 
beaten and with no encouragement from Dolly 
Varden he runs away and joins the army los- 
ing an arm at the siege of Savannah. John 
welcomes his son back again and never speaks 
of him without a proud allusion to his lost 
arm. 

A burly, large-headed man with a fat face, 
which betokened profound obstinacy and slow- 
ness of apprehension, combined with a very 
strong reliance upon his own merits. It was 
John Willet's ordinary boast in his more placid 
moods that if he were slow he was sure; 
which assertion could in one sense at least be 
by no means gainsaid, seeing that he was in 
everything unquestionably the reverse of fast, 
and withal one of the most dogged and posi- 
tive fellows in existence — always sure that 
what he thought or said or did was right, and 
holding it as a thing quite settled and or- 
dained by the laws of nature and Providence, 
that anybody who said or did or thought other- 
wise must be inevitably and of necessity 
wrong. 
Barnaby Rudge, ch. i-iii, x-xiv, xix, xx, xxiv, 

xxix, xxxiii-xxxv, liv-lvi, Ixxii, Ixxviii, 

Ixxxii. 



334 



MR. WOPSLE'S GREAT AUNT 



Mr. Wopsle, parish clerk, a friend of Mrs. 
Joe Gargery. He afterwards became an actor 
under the name of Mr. Waldengarver. 

Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and 
a large shining bald forehead, had a deep voice 
which he was uncommonly proud of, indeed 
it was understood among his acquaintance that 
if you could only give him his head, he would 
read the clergyman into fits; he himself con- 
fessed that if the Church was " thrown open," 
meaning to competition, he would not despair 
of making his mark in it. The Church not 
being " thrown open," he was, as I have said, 
our clerk. But he punished the Amens tre- 
mendously; and when he gave out the psalm 
— always giving the whole verse — he looked 
all around the congregation first, as much as 
to say, " You have heard our friend overhead ; 
oblige me with your opinion of this style ! " 
. . . Mr. Wopsle said grace with theatrical 
declamation — as it now appears to me, some- 
thing like a religious cross of th^ Ghost in 
Hamlet with Richard the Third — and ended 
with the very proper aspiration that we might 
be truly grateful. 
Great Expectations, ch. iv-vii, x, xiii, xv, xxxi, 

xlviU. 

Mr. Wopsle's Great Aunt, kept a dame's 
school at which Pip received his first rudi 
ments of education. 

335 



MR. WOPSLE'S GREAT AUNT 

She was a ridiculous old woman of limited 
means and unlimited infirmity, who used to 
go to sleep from six to seven every evening, 
in the society of youth who paid twopence per 
week each, for the improving opportunity of 
seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, 
and Mr. Wopsle had the room upstairs^ where 
we students used to overhear him reading 
aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, 
and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. 
There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle " exam- 
ined" the scholars once a quarter. What he 
did on those occasions was to turn up his 
cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark 
Antony's oration over the body of Caesar. 
This was always followed by Collins's Ode 
on the Passions, wherein I particularly ven- 
erated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge, throwing his 
blood-stained sword in thunder down, and tak- 
ing the War-denouncing trumpet with a with- 
ering look. It was not with me then, as it 
was in later life, when I fell into the society of 
the Passions, and compared them with Collins 
and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of 
both gentlemen. 

Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, besides keeping 
this Educational Institution, kept in the same 
room — a little general shop. She had no 
idea what stock she had, or what the price of 
anything in it was; but there was a little 
336 



MR. WOPSLE'S GREAT AUNT 

greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, 
which served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by 
this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop trans- 
actions. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's 
granddaughter. . . . 

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the 
help of Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle's great- 
aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if 
it had been a bramble-bush; getting consider- 
ably worried and scratched by every letter. 
After that, I fell among those thieves, the 
nine figures, who seemed every evening to do 
something new to disguise themselves and 
baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in 
a purblind groping way, to read, write, and 
cipher, on the very smallest scale. . . . 

The Educational scheme or Course estab- 
lished by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt may be 
resolved into the following synopsis. The 
pupils ate apples and put straws down one 
another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great- 
aunt collected her energies, and made an in- 
discriminate totter at them with a birch-rod. 
After receiving the charge with every mark 
of derision, the pupils formed in line and buz- 
zingly passed a ragged book from hand to 
hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some 
figures and tables, and a little spelling — 
that is to say, it had had once. As soon as 
this volume began to circulate, Mr. Wopsle's 



MR. WOPSLE'S GREAT AUNT 

great-aunt fell into a state of coma; arising 
either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. 
The pupils then entered among themselves 
upon a competitive examination on the sub- 
ject of Boots, with the view of ascertaining 
who could tread the hardest upon whose toes. 
This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made 
a rush at them and distributed three' defaced 
Bibles (shaped as if they had been unskil- 
fully cut off the chump-end of something), 
more illegibly printed at the best than any 
curiosities of literature I have since met with, 
speckled all over with ironmould, and having 
various specimens of the insect world smashed 
between their leaves. This part of the Course 
was usually lightened by several single com- 
bats between Biddy and refractory students. 
When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the 
number of a page, and then we all read aloud 
what we could — or what we couldn't — in a 
frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high 
shrill monotonous voice, and none of us hav- 
ing the least notion of, or reverence for, what 
we were reading abotu. When this horrible 
din had lasted a certain time, it mechanically 
awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered 
at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. 
This was understood to terminate the Course 
for the evening, and we emerged into the air 
with shrieks of intellectual victory. It is fair 
338 



MR. WOPSLE'S GREAT AUNT 

to remark that there was no prohibition 
against any pupil's entertaining himself with 
a slate or even with the ink (when there was 
any), but that it was not easy to pursue that 
branch of study in the winter season, on ac- 
count of the little general shop in which the 
classes were holden — and which was also Mr. 
Wopsle's great-aunt's sitting-room and bed- 
chamber — being but faintly illuminated 
through the agency of one low-spirited dip- 
candle and no snuffers. 
Great Expectations, ch. vii. 



339 



OCCUPATIONS AND CONDITION OF LIFE 
OF THE CHARACTERS PORTRAYED. 

Note. This can only he considered an at- 
tempted classification; for the subjects often play 
so many parts, and appear in so many different 
roles ^ as to defy complete treatment of this kind: 
— others again are so nondescript that they can 
only find a place in "Miscellaneous" or as '" Odd 
Characters and Queer Folk." Enough however 
will he found here to indicate the marvellous va- 
riety and distinctiveness of the personages who 
crowd the pages of the works of Dickens. 



Actor PAGE 

WopsLE, Mr 335 

Adventurers 

Chollop, Major H -47 

Jingle, A 171 

TiGG, Montague 293 

Advertisement Writer 

Slum, Mr 264 

Apprentice 

Tappertit, Sim 288 

Architects and Surveyors 

Pecksniff, Seth 216 

Pinch, Tom 225 

Aristocracy, The 

Chester, Edward 40 

Chester, Mr. (Sir John) 41 

Darnay, Charles (St. Evremonde) . 76 
341 



OCCUPATIONS OF 



Aristocracy — Continued. page 

Dedlock, Lady Honoria 83 

Dedlock, Sir Leicester 86 

Gordon, Lord George 144 

Skettles, Sir Barnet 259 

Artist 

La Creevy, Miss 177 

Bankers 

Tellson & Co 290 

Bankrupts 

Dorrit, F 112 

DoRRiT, W. , 114 

Beadle, parish 

Bumble, Mr 28 

Blacksmith 

Gargery, Joe 136 

Blue-stocking 

Jellyby, Mrs 169 

Body Snatcher 

Cruncher, Jerry 61 

Carrier (Expressman) 

Barkis, Mr . 4 

Children and Child Life 

Dombey, Florence 105 

DoMBEY, Paul . 106 

Dorrit, Little ... 108 

Emily, Little 120 

Clerical Profession, The 

Chadband, The Rev, Mr. . . .' . . 38 

Stiggins, The Rev. Mr. . . . . 276 

Clerks 

Chuffey, Mr 49 

Carker, James 63 

Carker, John 67 

Heep, Uriah 158 

342 



THE CHARACTERS 



Clerks — Continued page 

LiNKINWATER, TiM I78 

Lorry, Mr. Jarvis i8i 

MiCAWBER, W 194 

NoGGS, Newman 212 

PiRSip, Philip . . 228 

Pocket, Herbert 231 

SwiVELLER, Dick 283 

Wemmick, Mr. John 329 

Clerk, Parish 

WopsLE, Mr 335 

Coachman 

Weller, Tony 327 

Companions 

Dartle, Rosa 79 

General, Mrs 141 

Graham, Mary 149 

Murdstone, Miss 206 

Pross, Miss 237 

Cornchandlers 

MiCAWBER, WiLKINS 194 

PUMBLECHOOK, UnCLE 239 

Criminals 

Barsad, John 6 

Chuzzlewit, Jonas 51 

CoMPEYsoN 59 

Crackit, Toby 71 

Dawkins, John 81 

Fagin 124 

Heep, Uriah 158 

LiTTiMER 179 

Magwitch, a. 187 

^ — 'QuiLP, Daniel 241 

RiGAUD, alias Blandois 244 

RuDGE, Senior 250 

SiKES, Bill 256 



•343 



\ 



OCCUPATIONS OF 



Detectives page 

Bucket, Mr. Inspector 26 

Nadgett, Mr 208 

Domestic Servants 

MiGGS, Miss 199 

Molly 200 

PiPCHiN, Mrs , . . 226 

Engineer 

DoYCE, Daniel 17 

Gambler 

Mr. Trent {Little Nell's Grandfather) . 301 

Gentleman's Servant 

LiTTiMER 179 

Governesses 

General, Mrs 141 

Pinch, Ruth 223 

Hangman 

Dennis, Ned 91 

Hostlers 

Hugh {Natural son of Sir John Chester) 160 

Tapley, Mark 285 

Housekeepers 

Molly 200 

PiPCHiN, Mrs 226 

Pross, Miss 237 

WiCKFiELD, Agnes 330 

Inn-Keepers 

Lupin, Mrs 183 

WiLLET, John 3:^3 

Inventor 

DoYCE, Daniel 117 

Journalists 

Brick, Mr. Jefferson 25 

Diver, Colonel 98 

PoTT, Mr 236 

Slurk, Mr 265 

344 



THE CHARACTERS 



Landlady page 

Bardell, Mrs. Martha 3 

Landlord 

Casby, Christopher 35 

Legal Profession 

.--^rass, Sally {Lawyer's Clerk) ... 20 

^--/ Brass, Sampson {Attorney) . . . . 23 

'Carton, Sydney {Lawyer's Devil) . . 32 

Jaggers, Mr. {Criminal Lawyer) . . . 162 

JoRKiNS, Mr. {Proctor) 176 

Pell, Mr. Solomon {Attorney) . . . 220 
Snubbin, Sergeant {Counsel) . . . 271 
Spenlow, Mr. F. {Proctor) . . . .273 

Stareleigh, Mr. Justice 275 

Stryver, Mr. {Barrister) 281 

Traddles, Thomas {Judge) .... 299 
Tulkinghorn, Mr. {Lawyer) . . . 315 

Vholes, Mr. {Solicitor) 324 

WiCKFiELD, Mr. {Country Lawyer) . . 332 

Locksmiths 

DoYCE, Daniel 117 

Varden, Gabriel 322 

Lunatics 

i^ABLEY, Richard " Mr. Dick "... 94 

Havisham, Miss 156 

Rudge, Barnaby 247 

Manicurist 

MowcHER, Miss 202 

Manufacturer 

Bounderby, Josiah 16 

Medical Profession, The 

Allen, Benjamin i 

Chillip, Dr 70 

Manette, Dr. A . . 188 

Sawyer, Bob 255 

Slammer, Dr 263 

345 



OCCUPATIONS OF 



Member of Congress page 

PoGRAM, The Hon. Elijah . . . . 235 

Member of Parliament 

Skettles, Sir Barnet 259 

Merchants 

Cheeryble Bros 68 

DoMBEv & Son 100 

Flintwinch, Jeremiah , . 131 

Gradgrind, Thomas 147 

MuRDSTONE, Mr 204 

Pocket, Herbert 231 

Messenger 

Cruncher, Jerry 61 

Military Profession 

Bagstock, Major J 2 

Chollop, Major Hannibal .... 47 

Miscellaneous Characters 

Beadle, Harriet 9 

Bevan, Mr 10 

Boythorn, Lawrence 18 

Chivery, John 44 

Chollop, Major H 47 

Chuzzlewit, M. {the Elder) .... 52 

Clenman, Mrs 57 

Defarge, E 87 

Defarge, T 88 

Dombey, Mrs. E 103 

Gargery, Mrs. Jo 138 

Gum midge, Mrs 154 

Havisham, Miss 156 

Jarndyce, John 167 

Little Emily 120 

Meagles, Minnie 192 

Nubbles, Chustopher 215 

Rudge, Mrs 253 

"Tattycoram" (See Beadle, H.) . . 9 

Tox, Miss Lucretia 295 

346 



THE CHARACTERS 



Miscellaneous Characters — Continued. page 

Trent, Little Nell 307 

Varden, Dolly 319 

Varden, Mrs 323 

WiCKFiELD, Agnes 330 

Musician 

DORRIT, F 112 

Nautical Instrument Seller 

Gills, Solomon 143 

Nurse 

Gamp, Sairey 134 

Odd Characters and Queer Folk 

Babley, Richard (Mr. Dick) ... 94 

Jingle, Alfred 171 

FiNCHiNG Flora 129 

Flite Miss 132 

Grimwig, Mr 153 

Maggy 185 

Micawber, W 194 

Mowcher, Miss 202 

Mr. F's Aunt 123 

Pickwick, Samuel 221 v 

RuDGE, Barnaby 247 X^ 

Skimpole, Harold 261 

Slyme, Chevy 267 

Smike 268 

Trotwood, Miss Betsey 312 

Turveydrop, Mr 317 

Wade, Miss 326 

Sailors, etc. 

BuNSBY, Capt. Jack 31 

Cuttle, Capt. Edward 74 

Peggotty Ham 220 

Schools, Scholars, Schoolmasters, etc., etc. 

Bitzer 12 

Blimber, Dr 14 



347 



OCCUPATIONS 



Schools, etc. — Continued. page 

Creakle, Mr 72 

Darnay, Charles 76 

Feeder, Mr., B. A 127 

McChoakumchild, Mr 184 

Pocket, M 234 

Squeers, Wackford 274 

Strong, Dr 278 

Wopsle, Mr.'s Great Aunt .... 335 

Secretary 

Gashford 139 

Spy 

Barsad, John 6 

Street-crossing Sweeper 

Jo, alias " Toughey " 173 

Theatrical Professsion, Shows, etc. 

Jarley, Mrs 164 

Wopsle, Mr. . 335 

Undertaker 

Trabb, Mr 297 

Usurers 

Gride, Arthur 151 

NiCKLEBY, R. . 210 



otc ae^^so"? 



